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THE WORKING PRINCIPLES
OF RHETORIC

EXAMINED IN THEIR LITERARY RELATIONS
AND ILLUSTRATED WITH EXAMPLES

JOHN FRANKLIN GENUNG

Professor of Rhetoric in Amherst College

A RESTUDIED AND REPROPORTIONED TREATISE BASED ON
THE AUTHOR'S

PRACTICAL ELEMENTS OF RHETORIC

BOSTON, U.S.A.

GINN & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS

Clje 8t&ewettm ^xzm

1901

G4£

TO THE SUCCESSION, NOW GOODLY IN NUMBER, OF THOSE

WHO RECALL FROM THEIR COLLEGE DAYS THE

ROOM WITH THE INSCRIPTION

QVI • NOVIT • NEQVE ■ ID • QVOD • SENTIT ■ EXPRIMIT •
PERINDE ■ EST • AC ■ SI ■ NESCIRET ■

PREFACE.

THE preface to the volume on which the present work is
based, written nearly fourteen years ago, forecast and
not inaptly characterized the purpose of this new venture, in
its remark a propos of the old subject of rhetoric, that " old
things, in proportion to their living value, need from time to
time to be newly defined and distributed, their perspective
and emphasis need to be freshly determined, to suit changing
conditions of thought." The old subject is newer than it was
then ; its living value, in life no less than in school, more
generally recognized. If along with this the conditions of its
study have changed, one element of the change may particu-
larly be noted : the tendency to specialization which a deeper
interest always brings. Rhetoric, in its higher reaches, is
studied nowadays largely by topics and sections, in which
single stages or processes of the art literary are taken up and
by a kind of laboratory method carried to any depth or
minuteness desired.

A laboratory method, of whatever sort, is not absolutely
empirical. Its essence is indeed observation, discovery,
experiment ; but in its outfit must also be included a labora-
tory manual, to direct and determine its lines of work. Special
monographs and records of research have their place, but
they do not take the place of this. There is needed, to cover
the whole field, some treatise which, presenting the basal
principles on a uniform scale and from one point of view,
shall thereby exhibit also the mutual relations and proportions

vi PREFACE.

of the various parts. A treatise of this kind is in its nature
both a text-book and a book of reference, something to be
studied and also consulted. The specific use to which it is
put, and the order in which its parts are taken up, are matters
to be determined largely by the teacher and the course. As
a laboratory manual it does not profess to embody the com-
plete outfit; while it stands, as a basis of reference and direc-
tion, at the centre, it presupposes other things, accompanying,
which shall supply the praxis and model-study necessary.

Such a manual as this the author had in mind in preparing
the present volume. He has aimed to traverse broadly the
field of rhetoric, setting forth its working principles by defini-
tion, explication, and example. In his aim have also been
included the utmost attainable clearness, simplicity, and sound
sense in the presentation. It is not for him, of course, to say
how far he has been successful. Some principles — nay, all
of them — go deep ; they cannot but do so, if their working
begins within ; but those inner points of human nature to
which they penetrate are not beyond the recognition of the
undergraduate, and to every writer who attains to a degree
of mastery they are consciously present as points both of
outset and of aim. Sooner or later, therefore, these vitalizing
principles must be taken into the account; they are what
colors and finishes the whole work of authorship. A liberal
course of instruction is recreant to itself if, cramping itself to
wooden rules of grammar and logic, it neglects what may be
called the practical psychology of the art, or leaves it to that
education which began two hundred years before the student's
birth. This, then, is what the author has tried to exhibit :
the process of composition traced genetically, through its large
working principles, with those living considerations which con-
nect these with writer, reader, and occasion. The book does
not set up as an authority, except so far as its statements,
fairly tested, prove self-justifying. Of any of the assertions

PREFACE. Vil

here made the simple desire is, that student and teacher
look at them, give them all possible verification of trial and
example, and see if they are not so. One thing further also :
that as the upshot of all and each it may be seen how great a
thing it is, how truly a matter of ordered art, yet withal how
simple and business-like, to write.

There is only one name to give to the point of view thus
brought to light. It is the literary. Rhetoric is literature, taken
in its details and impulses, literature in the making. What-
ever is implied in this the present work frankly accepts. Its
standard is literary ; it is concerned, as real authorship must
be, not with a mere grammatical apparatus or with Huxley's
logic engine, but with the whole man, his outfit of conviction
and emotion, imagination and will, translating himself, as it
were, into vital and ordered utterance. It is in this whole
man that the technique of the art has its roots.

Begun as a revision of the author's Practical Elements of
Rhetoric, the work, as thus contemplated, was seen to be,
almost from the outset, so truly a new treatment of the subject
that the decision was made to issue it as a new work, of which
the other is merely the basis. The exposition is throughout
subjected to a restatement for which the author can think of
no word so fitting as reproportioned ; it is brought by its
terms and ordering more into the line of scientific literary
study as it is pursued to-day and into more rigid consist-
ency with itself. To give in any detail the changes from the
former work would serve no useful purpose here. A few
of the more salient ones may be mentioned. What was
before given in chapters and occasional subdividing sections
now appears in books and chapters, the latter being numbered
continuously through the volume. Chapters viii. and ix.
cover substantially the ground formerly entitled Fundamental
Processes. Chapter vii., on Rhythm, is nearly all new. The
substance of the chapter formerly entitled Reproduction of

vili PRE FA CE.

the Thought of Others is incorporated with Chapter xvi., as
Exposition of the Symbols of Things. The subject of Persua-
sion now appears, under the heading Oratory, in connection
with its controlling literary type, Argumentation. Whether
these changes will all justify themselves is a question that
must be left to the judgment of those who have used the older
book ; they seem to come in the way of the reproportioning
which the subject has undergone.

The additional matter furnished by the numerous corrobo-
rative footnotes will, it is hoped, be of service to those
teachers and students who desire further rhetorical reading.
Of the value of these notes such names as Earle, Pater,
Stevenson, Bagehot, De Quincey, are a sufficient guarantee.
No voluminous reading of this kind, of course, can be given ;
but many wise and weighty remarks from critics of recognized
authority are thus gathered from widely scattered sources
and made available in connection with the principles to
which they apply. The body of these appended readings is
especially indicated, at the end of the book, in the Directory
of Authors Quoted.

This book, as is intimated above, is contemplated only as
part of a rhetorical apparatus, the laboratory manual on which
other lines of work are founded. For the praxis work of com-
position, and for more extended study of models than the
examples furnish, the present volume has no room. It is the
author's intention, in due time, to publish in a companion
volume what is here lacking.

In the reading of the proofs the author has had, and hereby
thankfully acknowledges, the much-valued assistance of Pro-
fessor William B. Cairns, whose suggestions have been care-
fully weighed and generally followed, though, as sometimes
the casting-vote went adversely, no responsibility for mistakes
or imperfections should be laid to his charge.

Amherst, March 4, 1901.

CONTENTS.

Introductory.

Definition of Rhetoric . .
Rhetoric as Adaptation

Rhetoric as Art

Province and Distribution of Rhetoric

I. STYLE.
BOOK I. — STYLE IN GENERAL.

Chapter I. — Nature and Bearings of Style. 16-26

Definition of Style 19

Adjustments of Style, and the Culture that promotes them . 20

The Principle of Economy 23

Chapter II. — Qualities of Style. 27-43

1. Clearness 29

11. Force 33

in. Beauty 37

Temperament of Qualities . 41

BOOK II. — DICTION.

Chapter III. — Choice of Words for Denotation. 46-74

1. Accurate Use 46

11. Intelligible Use 52

in. Present Use ' . . 6r

iv. Scholarly Use 68

CONTENTS.

Chapter IV. — Words and Figures for Connotation.

I. Connotation of Idea

Overt Figures of Association
Implicatory Words and Coloring

II. Connotation of Emotion

Overt Figures of Emotion .
Animus of Word and Figure

Chapter V. — Prose Diction — Standard and Occasional.

ii.

in.

Standard Prose Diction ....
The Prose Vocabulary
Prose Arrangement of Words .
Prose Connection of Words

Prose Diction as determined by Occasion
The Diction of Spoken Discourse
The Diction of Written Discourse
Manufactured Diction

Maintenance of the Tone of Discourse .

Chapter VI. — Poetic Diction, and its Interactions with Prose.

I. Poetic Traits in Poetry and Prose

Tendency to Brevity or Concentration
Partiality to Unworn Words and Forms
Language employed for its Picturing Power
Language employed for Qualities of Sound
II. The Approaches of Prose to Poetry

The Intellectual Type ....

The Impassioned Type ....
The Imaginative Type ....

Chapter VII. — Rhythm in Poetry and in Prose.

I. Elements of Poetic Rhythm

The Metrical Unit : the Foot .
The Metrical Clause : the Verse
The Metrical Sentence : the Stanza
II. The Life of Verse

Overtones of Musical Rhythm .
Pliancy of the Recitative Measures
Undertone of Phrasal Rhythm .

CONTENTS. xi

PAGE

III. The Rhythm of Prose 210

As maintained against Poetic Rhythm . . . 210
Its Main Elements 213

BOOK III. — COMPOSITION.

Chapter VIII. — Phraseology. 223-267

1. Syntactical Adjustments 223

11. Three Idioms 232

in. Collocation 240

iv. Retrospective Reference 246

v. Prospective Reference 254

VI. Correlation 257

Vii. Conjunctional Relation 259

Chapter IX. — Organic Processes. 268-310

1. Negation 268

11. Antithesis 271 '

in. Inversion 276

iv. Suspension 279

v. Amplitude . . . 287

vi. Climax . . . . 292

vii. Condensation 295

viii. Repetition 302

Chapter X. — The Sentence. 311 —3 5 5

1. Organism of the Sentence 312

Elements of Structure . . . . . .312

Types of Structure 316

11. Interrelation of Elements 320

Errors of Interrelation . . . . . 320

Logical Relations Consistent with Unity . . . 323

Office of Punctuation 325

in. Massing of Elements for Force 335

Distribution of Emphasis 335

Dynamic Stress . 340

iv. The Sentence in Diction 345

As to Length 345

As to Mass 350

Combinations and Proportions 354

xii CONTENTS.

PAGE

Chapter XL — The Paragraph. 356-383

I. The Paragraph in Sum 358

11. The Paragraph in Structure 364

Relation of Parts to Sum 365

Relation of Parts to Each Other .... 370

Claims of Proportion 375

in. Kinds of Paragraphs 379

II. INVENTION.

BOOK IV. — INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

Chapter XII. — Approaches to Invention.

389-419

1. The Sense of Literary Form 390

11. The Support from Self-Culture 396

The Spirit of Observation 397

Habits of Meditation 402

Ways of reading 408

Disposal of Results 417

Chapter XIII. — The Composition as a Whole.

420-474

The Theme

As related to the Subject ....

As related to Form of Discourse

As distinguished from the Title
The Main Ideas

The Making of the Plan ....

Principles of Relation and Arrangement

Appendages of the Plan ....
The Amplifying Ideas

The Province of Unamplified Expression .

Objects for which Amplification is employed

Means of Amplification ....

Accessories of Amplification

421
421
426
429
432
432
433
449
458
460
462
464
471

CONTENTS,

BOOK V. — THE LITERARY TYPES.

Chapter XIV. — Description.

in.

The Underlying Principles

Problems of Material and Handling

Mechanism of Description .

Subdual of Descriptive Details
Accessories of Description

Avails of Imaginative Diction

The Human Interest .

Aid from Narrative Movement
Description in Literature

General Status and Value .

Forms of which Description is the Basis

Xlll

PAGE

477-5!°
478

479
481
486
493
493
499
503
506
506
508

Chapter XV. — Narration.

1. The Art of Narration

The End : to which all is related as forecast
The Narrative Movement ....
11. The Vehicle of the Story ....
The Supporting Medium ....

Discursive Narration

Combination of Narratives

in. Narration in Literature

History

Biography

Fiction

5""553

513
5*4

520

529
53°
535
537
543
544
548
55o

Chapter XVI. — Exposition.

I. Exposition of Things

Exposition Intensive : Definition
Exposition Extensive : Division
11. Exposition of the Symbols of Things
Exegesis of Terms
Explication of Propositions
Forms of Reproduction
in. Exposition in Literature

Criticism ....
Forms of Expository Work

554-596

557
558
568

575
576
578
582

59i
59i
594

xiv CONTENTS.

PAGE

Chapter XVII. — Argumentation. 597-662

Section I. — Argumentation in its Type Forms .... 598

1. Argumentation Constructive 599

Direct Discovery of Facts . . . . . . 599

Inference from Particulars 606

Inference from Generals 616

11. Argumentation Destructive 622

Analyzing by Alternative 623

Exposure of Fallacies 626

Section II. — Argumentation in Ordered System .... 633

1. Debate 634

Preparation of the Question 635

Measures looking to Attack and Defense . . . 637

Order of Arguments 639

11. Oratory 642

The Essence of Oratory 642

The Basis of Relation with the Audience . . . 645

Forms and Agencies of Appeal 650

Index of Subjects 663

Directory of Authors Quoted 673

THE

WORKING PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.

" I hope that your professors of rhetoric will teach you to culti
vate that golden art — the steadfast use of a language in which truth
can be told ; a speech that is strong by natural force, and not merely
effective by declamation ; an utterance without trick, without affecta-
tion, without mannerisms, and without any of that excessive ambition
which overleaps itself as much in prose writing as it does in other
things." — John M or ley.

INTRODUCTORY.

Definition of Rhetoric. — Rhetoric is the art of adapting
discourse, in harmony with its subject and occasion, to the
requirements of a reader or hearer.

Note. — The word discourse, which is popularly understood of some-
thing oral, as a speech or a conversation, will be used throughout this
treatise to denote any coherent literary production, whether spoken or
written. The term is broad enough to cover all the forms of composition,
and deep enough to include all its processes.

Rhetoric as Adaptation. — To treat a subject rightly, to say
just what the occasion demands, are indeed fundamental to
effective discourse ; but what more than all else makes it
rhetorical is the fact that all the elements of its composition
are adopted with implicit reference to the mind of readers or
hearers. The writer learns to judge what men will best
understand, what they can be made to feel or imagine, what
are their interests, their tastes, their limitations ; and to
these, as subject and occasion dictate, he conforms his work ;
that is, he adapts discourse to human nature, as its require-
ments are recognized and skilfully interpreted. The var' ajj
problems involved in such adaptation constitute the fiel^ *.
the art of rhetoric.

This idea of adaptation is the best modern representative
of the original aim of the art. Having at first to deal only

INTR OB UCTOR Y.

with hearers, rhetoric began as the art of oratory, that is, of
convincing and persuading by speech. Now, however, as the
art of printing has greatly broadened its field of action,
rhetoric must address itself to readers as well, must therefore
include more forms of composition and more comprehensive
objects ; while still the initial character of the art survives,
in the general aim of so presenting thought that it shall have
power on men, which aim is most satisfactorily denned ih the
term adaptation.

Note. — The derived and literary uses of the word rhetoric all start
from the recognition of the adaptedness of speech, as wielded by skill and
art, to produce spiritual effects. When, for instance, Milton says of Satan,

"the persuasive rhetoric
That sleeked his tongue, and won so much on Eve,"

or speaks, in Comus, of the

"gay rhetoric
That hath so well been taught her dazzling fence,"

he sees, in smoothness of speech and deftness of argument, rhetoric?
devices that in their place are quite legitimate, and incur reproach only
used unscrupulously. In the line

" Sweet, silent rhetoric of persuading eyes,"

the poet Daniel regards the influencing effect as produced by means other
than speech ; a not infrequent use of the word.

Distinguished by this Characteristic from the Sciences on which
it is founded. — The two sciences that mainly constitute the
basis of rhetoric are grammar and logic, both of which it
supplements in the direction of adaptation.

Grammar, which deals with the forms, inflections, and
offices of words, and their relation to each other in phrases
sentences, aims to show what is correct and admissible
usage, not what is adapted to men's capacities. A sentence
quite unexceptionable in grammar may be feebly expressed,
or crudely arranged, or hard to understand ; and if so it is to

INTR OD UC TORY. 3

just that degree unrhetorical. Rhetoric, while making its
sentence grammatical as a matter of course, inquires in addi-
tion by what choice and arrangement of words it can best
work its intended effect. Nor does its inquiry stop with the
sentence. In every stage and form of composition, wherever
the problem of adaptation may be involved, the art of rhetoric
has its principles and procedures.

Logic, which deals with the laws of thinking, aims to deter-
mine what sequences of thought are sound and self-consistent.
In so doing it works for the sake of its subject alone, not for
the convenience of a reader. A passage whose logic is quite
unassailable may be severe, abstruse, forbidding, and there-
fore unrhetorical. Rhetoric, while its expression must of
necessity conform to the laws of sound thinking, aims to
bring its thought home to men by making it attractive, vivid,
or otherwise easier to apprehend.

Lines of Rhetorical Adaptation. — The requirements of a
reader or hearer are determined not by his mental capacities
alone, but by his whole nature ; which, in one way or another,
as subject and occasion dictate, is to be acted upon by the
power of language. The common psychological division of
man's spiritual powers will indicate broadly three main lines
of adaptation.

There is first the power of intellect, by which a man knows,
thinks, reasons. Discourse that addresses itself to this power
aims merely to impart information or convince of truth ; and
its adaptation consists in giving the reader facilities to see
and understand. This practical aim is what gives substance
and seriousness to all literary endeavor ; but its sole or pre-
dominating presence gives rise to the great body of everyday
writing, — news, criticism, science, history, discussion, all
that deals with the common facts and interests of life ; which
may be included under the general name of Matter-of-fact
Prose.

4 INTR 01) UC TOR Y.

Secondly, there is the power of emotion, by which a man
feels and imagines. Discourse that addresses itself to this
power aims to make men not only understand a truth but
realize it vividly and have a glow of interest in it ; and the
adaptation is effected by using language that stimulates and
thrills. This aim has a large part in the more literary forms
of prose ; but it appears most unmixedly in Poetry.

Thirdly, there is the power of will, by which a man ven-
tures life and action on what he believes or thinks. Dis-
course that addresses itself to this power must make men
both understand clearly and realize intensely ; it must there-
fore work with both intellect and emotion ; but through these
it must effect some definite decision in men's sympathies or
conduct. Its adaptation consists in making its thought a
power on motive and principle ; and the aim results in the
most complex literary type, Oratory.

From the consideration of these human powers and capaci-
ties, with the countless limitations that culture, occupation,
and original character impose upon them, it will easily be
seen how broad is the field of rhetorical adaptation, and how
comprehensive must be the art that masters and applies its
resources.

II.

Rhetoric as Art. — In the adapting of discourse to the
requirements of reader or hearer, under the various condi-
tions that call for such work, it is evident that there must
be all the fine choice of means and fitting of these to ends,
all the intimate conversance with material and working-tools,
that we associate with any art, fine or useful.

Rhetoric, here called an art, is sometimes defined as a
science. Both designations are true ; they merely regard the
subject in two different aspects. Science is systematized
knowledge : if then the laws and principles of discourse are

INTR OD UC TOR Y. 5

exhibited in an ordered and interrelated system, they appear
in the character of a science. Art is knowledge made effi-
cient by skill ; if then rhetorical laws and principles are
applied in the actual construction of discourse, they become
the working-rules of an art.

From both points of view rhetoric has great practical
value in liberal culture. Studied as a science or theory, in
which aspect it may be called critical rhetoric, it promotes
understanding and appreciation of literature, and thereby
not only aids those who have natural literary aptitude but
deepens and enrich'es the reading of those to whom such gift
is denied. Cultivated for practical ends, as an art, in which
aspect it may be called constructive rhetoric, the study, while
it can set up no pretensions to confer the power to write, can
do much to steady and discipline powers already present, and
keep them from blundering and feeble ways. And each mode
of approach so helps the other that in practice the two,
science and art, cannot attain their best disjoined.

Note. — The present manual, because it regards the student always as
in the attitude of constructing, of weighing means and procedures not for
their mere scientific or curious interest but as adapted to produce practical
results, starts from the definition of rhetoric as an art.

Analogies with Other Arts. — What is true of other arts,
such as painting, music, sculpture, handicraft, is so exactly
paralleled in the art of rhetoric, that it will be useful to
trace some of the analogies.

i. Aptitude for masterful expression, like an ear for music
or an eye for color and proportion, is an inborn gift. Exist-
ing in infinitely various degrees, this aptitude may sometimes
be so great as to discover the secret of good writing almost
by intuition ; while sometimes it may lie dormant and unsus-
pected, needing the proper impulse of culture to awaken it.
In the great majority of cases it exists merely in such moder-

6 INTRODUCTORY.

ate degree as to suffice for useful and common-sense work in
the ordinary occasions of writing. So much aptitude may-
be taken for granted ; and if the higher degree is present it
will according to its insight find the higher ranges of the art
congenial.

2. Just as in these other arts one does not think of stop-
ping with mere native aptitude, but develops and disciplines
all his powers so that -they may be employed wisely and
steadily ; so in the art of expression one needs by faithful
study and practice to get beyond the point where he only
happens to write well, or where brilliancy and crudeness are
equally uncontrolled, and attain that conscious power over
thought and language which makes every part of his work
the result of unerring skill and calculation.

3. Like other arts, this art of rhetoric has its besetting
faults, which it requires watchfulness, conscientiousness, and
natural taste to avoid. — The most prevalent of these, perhaps,
is the fault of falling idly into conventional and stereotyped
ways of expression, without troubling to think how much or
how little they mean. This is at bottom insincerity; it is
taking up with something that has embodied another man's
thought and passing it off for one's own, thus pretending to
think or feel what one does not. — A second fault is trust-
ing too much to one's cleverness and fluency, and not having
patience and application in the exercises necessary to deepen
and steady one's powers ; in other words, neglecting the
technic of the art. This is especially the tendency of those
to whom writing comes easily ; they think their native apti-
tude will make up for discipline, — always a fatal mistake. —
A third fault is being so taken with tricks, vogues, manner-
isms of expression as to think more of the dress one gives the
thought than of the thought itself ; thus making rhetoric the
manipulation of devices of language for their own sake. It
must be borne in mind that this art of rhetoric does not

INTRO D UCTOR V. 7

exist for itself, but only as the handmaid of the truth which
it seeks to make living in the minds and hearts of men.1

4. As in the mastering of other arts, so in this, there is an
initial stage during which the submitting of one's work to
severe artistic standards seems to spoil it ; the powers that
when running wild produced results uneven and uncertain
indeed but full of native vigor and audacity become, as
dominated by art, labored, wooden, self-conscious. This,
however, is merely a temporary period in the necessary proc-
ess of changing artistic power from arbitrary rules to second
nature. To discard rhetorical discipline on this account, as
many do, does not help the matter ; it is merely to abandon
what experience has contributed to a difficult art and set
one's self to evolve one's own modes of procedure, with all
the risks of mannerism and blundering. The wiser way is
to work up through that self-conscious stage to the eminence
where the art becomes at once artistic, uniform in quality,
and full of the spontaneousness of nature.

Fine Art and Mechanical Art. — The distinction ordinarily
made between mechanical or useful art and fine art has its
application to rhetoric ; which may be classed with either,
according as its results are merely practical, as in journalism
and matters of everyday information, or more distinctively
literary, as in poetry, oratory, romance. Nor is it either easy
or desirable to define the point where one kind of art passes
into the other. Both the sense of the practical and the sense
of the beautiful may each in its way control the same work ;
and thus the composition may be at once masterful contriv-
ance and fine art, with each quality reinforced by the other.

1 The above remarks on the faults of the rhetorical art are suggested by a sentence
from Raskin's Introduction to "Roadside Songs of Tuscany": " All fatal faults in
art that might have been otherwise good, arise from one of these three things : either
from the pretence to feel what we do not ; the indolence in exercises necessary to
obtain the power of expressing the truth ; or the presumptuous insistence upon, and
Indulgence in, our own powers and delights, and with no care or wish that they
ihoold be useful to other people, so only they may be admired by them."

8 INTRO D UCTOR V.

To every writer who enlists a well-endowed nature in it,
the art of expression is comprehensive enough to include the
highest and most exquisite literary achievement ; while at its
beginning, accessible to all, are the homely and useful details
of plain words and clear thinking. Nor is any stage of the
work so insignificant but genius can give it the charm of a
fine art.

III.

Province and Distribution of Rhetoric. — The province of the
study is suggested in the foregoing definition of rhetoric as
art and as adaptation. Its province is to expound in sys-
tematic order the technic of an art. But inasmuch as this is
an art governed in all its details by the aim of adaptation, its
problems are not primarily problems of absolute right and
wrong, but of fitness and unfitness, or, where various expedi-
ents are in question, of better and worse.1 What is good for
one occasion or one class of readers or one subject may be
bad for another ; what will be powerful to effect one object
may be quite out of place for another. Thus it traverses
from beginning to end that field of activity wherein the
inventive constructive mind is supposably at work making
effective discourse.

The distribution of the study bases itself most simply, per-
haps, on the two questions that naturally rise in any under-
taking, the questions what and how. Round the first cluster
the principles that relate to matter or thought of discourse ;
round the second whatever relates to manner or expression.
Of course a question of expression must often involve the
question of thought also, and vice versa ; so the two lines of
inquiry must continually touch and interact ; but on the
whole they are distinct enough to furnish a clear working
basis for the distribution of the art.

1 See Wendell, English Composition, p. 2.

INTR OD UC TOR Y. 9

Reversing the order here suggested, for a reason presently
to be explained, the present manual groups the elements of
rhetoric round two main topics : style, which deals with the
manner of discourse ; and invention, which deals with the
matter.

Style. — The question how, which underlies the art of
style, divides itself into the questions what qualities to give
it in order to produce the fitting effect ; then, more particu-
larly, how to choose words both for what they say (denote)
and what they imply or involve (connote), that is, both
literal and figurative expression ; how to put words together
in phrases and sentences, with fitting stress and order ; and
how to build these sentences into paragraphs. This division
of the study is commonly regarded as the dryest; but it is
the most indispensable, and its dryness gives way to intense
interest in proportion as the importance of one's work is
apprehended. No word or detail can be insignificant which
makes more powerful or unerring a desired effect.

Invention. — The question what, which underlies the art of
invention, must be held to suggest more than the mere find-
ing of subject-matter, which of course must be left to the
writer himself. No text-book or system of study can do his
thinking for him. It belongs to invention also to determine
what concentration and coordination must be given to every
line of thought to make it effective ; then, more particularly,
what forms of discourse are at the writer's disposal, and what
peculiarities of management each demands. This division of
the study, while not more practical, has the interest of being
more directly concerned with the making of literature, and
the demands of self-culture therein involved.

I.
STYLE.

" Have something to say, and say it, was the Duke of Wellington's
theory of style ; Huxley's was to say that which has to be said in
such language that you can stand cross-examination on each word.
Be clear, though you may be convicted of error. If you are clearly
wrong, you will run up against a fact some time and get set right.
If you shuffle with your subject, and study chiefly to use language
which will give you a loophole of escape either way, there is no hope
for you." — Life and Letters of Thomas H. Huxley.

BOOK I. STYLE IN GENERAL.

It is as important in this art of rhetoric as in any other to
distinguish between the order of performance and the order
of training. When a writer, trained presumably to the point
of mastery, sets about the actual construction of a work of
literature, his first step, of course, is invention : that is,
determining in what form of discourse he will work, and
devising a framework of thought. The case is different with
a student setting out to attain proficiency in the art. He
must begin with practice in details of word and phrase and
figure ; just as a musician begins with scales and finger exer-
cises, and an artist with drawing from models. This is the
natural order in every art : first, patient acquisition of skill
in workmanship; then, matured design or performance.1 It
is as a recognition of this fact that in the course of rhetorical

1 " In all arts the natural advance is from detail to general effect. How seldom
those who begin with a broad treatment, which apes maturity, acquire subsequently
the minor graces that alone can finish the perfect work! ... He [Tennyson]
devoted himself, with the eager spirit of youth, to mastering this exquisite art [of
poetry], and wreaked his thoughts upon expression, for the expression's sake. And
what else should one attempt, with small experiences, little concern for the real
world, and less observation of it?" — Stedman, Victorian Poets, p. 156.

"As I walked, my mind was busy fitting what I saw with appropriate words;
when I sat by the roadside, I would either read, or a pencil and a penny version-book
would be in my hand, to note down the features of the scene or commemorate some
halting stanzas. Thus I lived with words. And what I thus wrote was for no ulte-
rior use, it was written consciously for practice. It was not so much that I wished
to be an author (though I wished that too) as that I had vowed that I would learn
to write. That was a proficiency that tempted me ; and I practiced to acquire it, as
men learn to whittle, in a wager with myself." — Stevenson, Memories and Por-
traits, Works, Vol. xiii, p. 211.

14 STYLE IN GENERAL.

art here traced the part relating to style precedes the part
relating to invention.

If this distinction were made merely to justify the plan
of a text-book, it would be of little consequence. It is made
rather because the claim of style, with all its demands on the
writer, is logically first and fundamental. Care for style is
the mood that ought to control every stage of the work, pro-
jecting and finishing alike. In every literary undertaking,
and with the sense of its importance increasing rather than
diminishing, the faithful writer's most absorbing labor is
devoted to studious management of details and particulars,
weighing of words, sifting and shaping of subtle turns of
phrase, until with unhasting pains everything is fitted to its
place. And the result of such diligence is increasing fineness
of taste for expression, and increasing keenness of sense for
all that contributes, in however small degree, toward making
the utterance of his thought perfect.

Ideal as this sounds, it is merely the rigorous artist mood
applied to literary endeavor; nor is it anything more than
becomes actual in the experience of every well-endowed
writer. The constant pressure of an ideal standard engen-
ders a certain sternness and severity of mood which for the
practical guidance of the student may be defined in these
two aspects : First, an insatiable passion for accuracy, in
statement and conception alike, which forbids him to be
content with any word or phrase that comes short of his
idea or is in the least aside from it. Secondly, an ardent
desire for freedom and range of utterance, for such wealth
of word and illustration as shall set forth adequately the ful-
ness of a deeply felt subject. The practical questions that
rise out of this mood are deeper than the search for qualities
of style, though also they include this latter quest ; they are,
in a sense, not questions of style at all, but of truth and fact.
If the student of composition would be a master of expression

STYLE IN GENERAL. 15

this earnestness of literary mood must become so ingrained as
to be a working consciousness, a second nature.1 This is what
is involved in giving style the first and fundamental claim.

1 " I hate false words, and seek with care, difficulty, and moroseness those that fit
the thing." — Landor.

" Nor is there anything here that should astonish the considerate. Before he can
tell what cadences he truly prefers, the student should have tried all that are possible ;
before he can choose and preserve a fitting key of words, he should long have prac-
tised the literary scales ; and it is only after years of such gymnastic that he can sit
down at last, legions of words swarming to his call, dozens of turns of phrase simul-
taneously bidding for his choice, and he himself knowing what he wants to do and
(within the narrow limit of a man's ability) able to do it." — Stevenson, Memories
and Portraits, Works, Vol. xiii, p. 214.

CHAPTER I.
NATURE AND BEARINGS OF STYLE.

Definition of Style. — Style is manner of choosing and
arranging words so as to produce determinate and intended
effects in language.1

It is evident that the thought must be developed enough to
contain some question of manner and effect before we can
associate style with it. Bare facts could be exhibited in sub-
stantives, or formulae, or statistics; but this would not be
style ; it would display no degrees of effectiveness, nor would
there be any interest in it beyond the thing that is said. A
work characterized by style derives equal importance from
the particular manner of saying a thing: there is a fitness,
a force, a felicity in the use of language which adapts the
thought to the occasion, and gives it dignity and distinction.
By its style the thought is made to stand out as adapted to
act upon men.

Note. — To illustrate how much style may have to do with the effective
presentation of a subject, compare the two following descriptions of the
same thing ; the one from an encyclopaedia, simply giving information,
the other from a romance and told in the person of an ordinary man of
the people.

"Avignon. The capital of the department of Vaucluse, France, situ-
ated on the east bank of the Rhone, in lat. 430 57' N., long. 40 50' E. : the
Roman Avenio : called the ' Windy City ' and the ' City of Bells.' It has

1 This is given as a working definition, suitable to a course of study, not as
including all the literary refinements of style. The distinction, general though not
absolute, between style, which centres in manner, and invention, which deals with
matter, has been given above, pp. 8, 9.

NATURE AND BEARINGS OF STYLE. 17

a large trade in madder and grain, and manufactures of silk, etc., and is
the seat of an archbishopric and formerly of a university. It was a flourish-
ing Roman town, and is celebrated as the residence of the popes 1309-77,
to whom it belonged until its annexation by the French in 1791. At that
time it was the scene of revolutionary outbreaks, and of reactionary atroci-
ties in 1815. . . . The palace of the popes is an enormous castellated
pile, built during the 14th century, with battlemented towers 150 feet high
and walls rising to a height of 100 feet."1

The second account is laid at the time of the revolutionary outbreaks
mentioned above.

"At last I came within sight of the Pope's City. Saints in Heaven!
What a beautiful town it was ! Going right up two hundred feet above
the bank of the river was a bare rock, steep and straight as though cut
with a stonemason's chisel, on the very top of which was perched a castle
with towers so big and high — twenty, thirty, forty times higher than the
towers of our church — that they seemed to go right up out of sight into
the clouds ! It was the Palace built by the Popes ; and around and
below it was a piling up of houses — big, little, long, wide, of every size
and shape, and all of cut stone — covering a space as big, I might say, as
half way from here to Carpentras. When I saw all this I was thunder-
struck. And though I still was far away from the city a strange buzzing
came from it and sounded in my ears — but whether it were shouts or
songs or the roll of drums or the crash of falling houses or the firing of
cannon, I could not tell. Then the words of the lame old man with the
hoe came back to me, and all of a sudden I felt a heavy weight on my
heart. What was I going to see, what was going to happen to me in the
midst of those revolutionary city folks ? What could I do among them —
I, so utterly, utterly alone ? " 2

From these examples it would appear that we must enlarge
our conception of what is involved in producing effects
by means of language. If it meant merely setting forth
bare facts of information, then writing like the first quoted
paragraph would be enough ; rhetorical study would be
learning to make catalogues and annals, and all excellences
of style would be reducible to various kinds of painstaking.
But while good writing includes this, while one of its most

1 The Century Cyclopedia of Names, s.v.

2 Felix Gras, The Reds of the Midi, p. 69.

18 STYLE IN GENERAL.

imperative aims is faithful transcription of fact, it includes
with this also the writer's individual sense of fact x ; and this
latter imparts to it the literary quality, a character and color
ing due both to the intrinsic nature of the fact or though
itself and to the writer's own personality.

Both of these relations of style require a few words
explication.

Style and the Thought. — It is a common notion among
practical-minded people that the style of a literary work is
an addition from without 2 ; as if the thought existed first by
itself and then some one who could manipulate words dressed
it up for effect. To them literature seems a trick and a trade,
having to do with devices and ornaments of expression, or
with cunning artifices of argument. This idea it is that so
often weights the word rhetoric with reproach, and casts a
slur on anything that is not expressed in the plainest and
directest manner. But the truth is, if in good writing a
thought is told plainly it is because the thought itself is plain
and simple, requiring only a bare statement for its full setting-
forth. If another thought is told elaborately, it is because
wealth of word, illustration, figure, clever phrasing and arrange-
ment are necessary to sound its depths or be just to its subtle
shadings. To a trained sense thoughts are esse?itially beauti-
ful or rugged, dignified or colloquial, dry or emotional ; con-
taining therefore the potency of their own ideal expression :
his aim is simply to interpret this character, whatever it is,
and by making his word and phrase correspond thereto, to
tell exactly and fully the truth that lies enwrapped in it.3

1 The distinction adopted from Pater, Appreciations, p. 5.

2 See this illustrated, Newman, Idea of a University, p. 277.

3 " In the highest as in the lowliest literature, then, the one indispensable beauty
is, after all, truth : — truth to bare fact in the latter, as to some personal sense of
fact, diverted somewhat from men's ordinary sense of it, in the former ; truth there
as accuracy, truth here as expression, that finest and most intimate form of truth, the
vraie verite. And what an eclectic principle this really is ! employing for its one sole
purpose — that absolute accordance of expression to idea — all other literary beauties

NATURE AND BEARINGS OF STYLE. 19

It is only for purposes of study and discipline that we
regard style as separable from thought. It is not, it cannot
be, something added from without. Anything not required
by the thought, brought in as a bit of finery or a mere eccen-
tricity, betrays its unfitness at once. For ideally the style is
the thought, freed from crudeness and incompleteness, and
presented in its intrinsic power and beauty. And the writer's
effort is not directed to achieving a style, but to satisfying
the demands of his subject, in order to bring out in its ful-
ness what is essentially there.

Note. — In the two descriptions quoted above, while both writers deal
with the same basis of fact, the thought embodied in the fact, as fits in
each case the object had in portraying the fact, is different. In the first
the controlling thought is simply plain information ; it gives numbers,
measurements, statistics, in a perfectly unadorned style. In the second
the controlling thought is the beauty and impressiveness of the city ; it is
important on that account, and on account of its part in the story ; so the
style is colored and heightened to correspond.

Style and the Man.1 — True as it is that the style is the
thought, it is equally true that the style is the man. No two
persons have the same way of looking at things. Each writer
imparts something of his own personality, the coloring of his
spirit or his moods, to what he writes ; so that the vigor of
his will, the earnestness of his convictions, the grace of his
fancies live again in a manner of expression that would be
natural to no one else. This manner of expression moves in
its individual lines of thought, begets its individual vocabu-
lary and mould of sentence, and is in fact the incommunicable
element of style.

Note. — In the two descriptions quoted above, there is little if any
suggestion of individuality in the first, because all the interest is centred

and excellences whatever : how many kinds of style it covers, explains, justifies, and
at the same time safeguards ! " — Pater, Appreciations, p. 31.

1 "Le style est l'homme meme." — Buffon, Discours de Reception a V Aca-
demic, 1753. The most famous maxim, perhaps, concerning style.

20 STYLE IN GENERAL.

in the bare thought. The second is strongly colored by individuality
read in it not only facts about Avignon, but the glowing interest of a man
of the people, influenced by astonishment and awe. And if this is a
feigned mood, still we see beyond it, in the author, a man of vigorous and
penetrative imagination, whose clear mind realizes the vital contact of the
soul with the world.

It is evident, then, that a man cannot obtain a good style
by imitating another man's style. It is his own peculiar
sense of fact that is to be cultivated, and his own natural
expression that is to fit it with words. He may indeed get
from the writings of others many a valuable suggestion or
inspiration for the management of his own work ; he ought
to be a diligent student of literature for this very purpose.
He may, in common with his whole generation, obey the
influence of some type of expression set by a vigorous thinker
or man of letters. There are styles that he may admire and
emulate, one for one quality, another for another. But any
direct imitation is sure to be weak, affected, insincere. His
one chance of success in style, as also his one road to origi-
nality, is to be frankly himself ; having confidence in his
own way of realizing truth, and developing that to its best
capabilities.1

II.

Adjustments of Style, and the Culture that promotes them. —
Three factors are to be noted as necessary in the perfect
adjustment of any style, or any quality of style, to its pur-
pose. To satisfy these is the work of skill and calculation in
any particular case ; these accomplish their end, however,
not as labored effort but as second nature, that is, the skill is
so grounded and confirmed in the writer's whole culture that
the adjustment makes itself.

1 " He who would write with anything worthy to be called style must first grow
thoughts which are worth communicating, and then he must deliver them in his own
natural language." — Earle, English Prose, p. 347.

NATURE AND BEARINGS OF STYLE. 21

i. The adjustment that recognizes the relation between
style and thought. Just as there are different planes of
thinking, so there are different levels of expression, from the
stately to the colloquial ; different colorings, too, from that
severity of word and phrase which centres in precisely denned
ideas, to that unstudied ease or fervor which is the sponta-
neous mirror of personal feeling. Of all this the nature of
the thought is the first dictator : it is from a vital sense of
thought and its prevailing tone that the fitting key of words
and cast of sentence rise.

The culture necessary to the perfect adjustment of style to
thought is the culture of taste. Taste is to writing what tact
and good breeding are to manners. Much of it may be
native, the goodly heritage of ancestry and refined surround-
ings ; but much of it is imparted, too, by one's companionship
with cultivated people and with the best literature. By his
daily habits of reading and conversation, if these are wisely
cared for, a man may acquire almost insensibly a literary
instinct, which enables him to feel at once what is false in
expression and what is true : he is aware when words are
eloquent and when they are merely declamatory ; when a
prosaic word or turn flats the tone of a poetic passage ; when
a colloquialism impairs dignity as well as when it adds vigor ;
when the unique word for a vital idea glows on the page or
flashes into his questing mind. To profit by such culture is
the real joy of literature.

2. The adjustment of the style to the conceptions and
capacities of the reader. The need of such adjustment is
suggested in the oft-made criticism that an orator "speaks
over the heads of his audience," that is, is too inflexible in
his individual ways of thinking and speech, does not sim-
plify for the needs of others than himself. Every subject of
thought, especially every scholarly subject, acquires as soon
as it is specialized a vocabulary, a point of view, a thought-

22 STYLE IN GENERAL.

mould of its own. With these the writer moves in familiar
acquaintance and intercourse; he thinks in their terms and
technicalities. But the reader has to be introduced to them
from outside, has to apprehend their truths, if at all, in sim-
plified expression. Much is done by the popular publications
of the day to bring learned subjects into the life of ordinary
readers ; still, much will always remain to be done, the problem
that besets the thinker always is, how to translate his thought
into the language and conceptions of average minds.

The culture necessary for the perfect adjustment of style
to the reader is the culture of broad interests and of the
knowledge of human nature. Every well-written book con-
tains evidence that not only its subject but the mind of its
reader has been closely studied. To the masterful writer an
audience is always imaginatively present, even in the solitude
of his study ; he writes as if he were conversing with them,
meeting their difficulties and adapting himself to their view
of things. This is not what is called " writing down " to a
reader ; rather it is divesting hard thought of its technical
dress and exhibiting it in the light of everyday standards.
And it is in this direction that literature lies.

3. The adjustment of the style to the writer's self, so that
it shall be a true and spontaneous representation of his mind
and character. The ability to make this so is by no means
a matter of course. A writer's mind may be glowing with the
beauty or greatness of a truth, and yet his attempt to express
it may result, with his best efforts, only in frigid and stilted
language. He may in conversation be perfectly fluent and
natural, may tell a story capitally or conduct an argument
with spirit and point, and yet write a pedantic or lifeless
style.1 The reason is that he has not mastered his medium of

1 " Tom Birch is as brisk as a bee in conversation ; but no sooner does he take a
pen in his hand, than it becomes a torpedo to him, and benumbs all his faculties." —
Remark attributed to Dr. Johnson, BoswelPs Life.

NATURE AND BEARINGS OE STYLE. 23

communication ; the mechanical work of putting down his
thoughts absorbs so much of his energy that he cannot be free
with a pen. His power over expression needs to be so devel-
oped by culture, needs to become so truly a second nature,
that his written words shall be a reflection of his truest self,
mind and mood alike. Until such mastery is attained, his
style belies, not represents himself.

Evidently here is where the culture due to training and
practice comes in. The most limpid and natural-seeming
style is simply the result of the finer art, which has become so
ingrained as to have concealed its processes. Such art does
not become unerring with the first attempt, nor with the sec-
ond ; it is the reward only of long labor, and patient subdual
of the rebellious elements of expression, until they become an
obedient working-tool responding to every touch, and repre-
sent not only the writer's thought but himself, in all the rich
endowments of his nature.1

Cultivation of literary taste, of hearty sympathy with men
and affairs, of skilful workmanship in language ; a pretty well-
rounded culture is thus laid out for him who would enter the
domain of literary art. Such culture can employ as belonging
integrally to its fulness not only a man's whole scholarship,
however deep or various, but the power and effluence of his
whole character.

III.

The Principle of Economy. — The foregoing ideals of style,
with their various lines of adjustment and culture, may be
reduced to one practical object, which, adopting the central

1 See above, p. 20. — Flaubert thus gives expression to his sense of the relation
between his thought and himself : " I am growing so peevish about my writing. I
am like a man whose ear is true but who plays falsely on the violin : his fingers
refuse to reproduce precisely those sounds of which he has the inward sense. Then
the tears come rolling down from the poor scraper's eyes and the bow falls from his
hand." — Quoted by Pater, Appreciations, p. 30.

24 STYLE IN GENERAL.

idea of Herbert Spencer's Philosophy of Style,1 we
as the economizing of the reader's attention.

Note. — The following is the paragraph of Mr. Spencer's book in which
the principle is set forth : —

" On seeking for some clue to the law underlying these current maxims,
we may see shadowed forth in many of them, the importance of economiz-
ing the reader's or hearer's attention. To so present ideas that they may
be apprehended with the least possible mental effort, is the desideratum
towards which most of the rules above quoted point. When we condemn
writing that is wordy, or confused, or intricate — when we praise this style
as easy, and blame that as fatiguing, we consciously or unconsciously
assume this desideratum as our standard of j udgment. Regarding language
as an apparatus of symbols for the conveyance of thought, we may say that,
as in a mechanical apparatus, the more simple and the better arranged its
parts, the greater will be the effect produced. In either case, whatever
force is absorbed by the machine is deducted from the result. A reader or
listener has at each moment but a limited amount of mental power avail-
able. To recognize and interpret the symbols presented to him, requires
part of this power ; to arrange and combine the images suggested requires
a further part ; and only that part which remains can be used for realizing
the thought conveyed. Hence, the more time and attention it takes to
receive and understand each sentence, the less time and attention can be
given to the contained idea; and the less vividly will that idea be conceived."

If we take economizing the reader's attention to mean
employing it to the best advantage, this theory of Spencer's
requires a more extended application than he gives it. Some
kinds of subject-matter, too, require a more strenuous atten-
tion than others ; and there are various kinds as well as various
degrees of attention to work for. The following main appli-
cations of the principle are important to keep in mind : —

i. The most obvious meaning of economy is, giving the
reader less to do ; that is, making the words as plain and the
grammatical construction as simple as possible, in order that

1 Spencer's Philosophy of Style, one of the classics of rhetoric, is an essay of his
volume, Essays, Moral, Political and ^Esthetic ; to be had also separately (New
York: D. Appleton & Co.). A well-annotated edition, edited by Professor Scott, is
published by Allyn & Bacon, Boston.

NATURE AND BEARINGS OF STYLE. 25

the reader's energy, as it is not needed for interpreting the
language, may be employed in realizing the thought itself.
Every one has observed the futility of a public address when
the listeners have to strain their ears to catch the words, or
when the words are indistinctly enunciated. In the same way
every ambiguity that has to be resolved, every hard construc-
tion that has to be studied out, uses up just so much of the
reader's available power for nothing ; the thought, with all its
interest and importance, suffers for it. Economy begins,
therefore, with making the expression plain and easy.

2. But some thoughts are in their nature hard or intricate ;
besides, what is too cheaply obtained is too little valued, in
literature as in everything else ; and frequently a thought is
prized the more from some effort made to master it. This
consideration creates no plea against simplicity of word and
construction ; that need is universal. But it suggests that in
many cases it is true economy, instead of giving the reader
less to do, to stimulate him to do more ; to use such striking
language as sets him thinking or awakens his imagination.
This kind of economy is what dictates the use of vivid and
suggestive language, picturesque imagery, and skilful phrasing
and grouping of ideas ; it is the economy which makes up in
vigor for what is sacrificed in facility.

3. It is to be borne in mind also that by the very progress
of the thought a reader's attention is continually being used
up ; it has to be maintained and reinforced. If an image is
roused in his mind, if a train of suggestion is started, every
such effect must be cherished and utilized ; and here is room
for the writer's wisdom. For a subject may be so exhaustively
presented as to deaden interest; the reader is given no share
in the thinking. It is true economy to leave something for
him to do ; to set him by wise suggestion on the road of the
thought, and know what to leave unsaid. It is not easy to
g'wc directions for accomplishing this, depending as it does

26 STYLE IN GENERAL.

so much on the writer's delicate knowledge of men ; but the
fact is to be noted that it is an object to be had in mind.1

4. The reader's aesthetic sense, his sense of congruity and
fitness, is to be recognized and conciliated. It is using up
attention for nothing when a word of ill connotation or a
harsh construction, a crudeness of sound or a lapse from
tasteful expression is left for him to stumble over and make
allowance for.2 Economy is not secured to the full until the
intrinsic beauty of the thought, as well as its logical content,
has undisturbed course in fitting language.

1 " To really strenuous minds there is a pleasurable stimulus in the challenge for
a continuous effort on their part, to be rewarded by securer and more intimate grasp
of the author's sense. Self-restraint, a skilful economy of means, ascesis, that too
has a beauty of its own ; and for the reader supposed there will be an aesthetic satis-
faction in that frugal closeness of style which makes the most of a word, in the
exaction from every sentence of a precise relief, in the just spacing out of word to
thought, in the logically filled space connected always with the delightful sense of
difficulty overcome." — Pater, Appreciations, p. 14.

2 " Readjusting mere assonances even, that they may soothe the reader, or at least
not interrupt him on his way." — lb., p. IX.

CHAPTER II.
QUALITIES OF STYLE.

Determinate qualities of style, being merely the practical
traits by which * desired effects in expression are produced,
manifest their need in all literary work, and therefore under-
lie all rhetorical study. Under various names and applica-
tions they will be constantly coming to view in the ensuing
pages. The most comprehensive of them are here exhibited
together, and some general means of securing them pointed
out, in order that the present chapter may stand as a basis of
reference and summary.

The Deeper Conception We call them qualities of style,

but this they are only superficially.

For what the writer is consciously working with, in any
act of composition, is not qualities of style in themselves,
but a rounded idealized thought, which he is concerned to
express so truly that nothing of its intrinsic significance shall
be lost. This significance, answering to nature and occasion,
assumes some ruling aspect : it may centre in the exact con-
tent of the thought, or in its interest and moment, or in its
fine appeal to the imagination, or in all of these. According
as he feels this intrinsic power the writer will seek to give his
thought such form and illustration as will bring it out ; and
thus, if adequate skill in work and phrase has been disciplined
in him to second nature, the qualities of style come of them
selves, attracted by his single-minded fidelity to the thought.1

1 " Truth indeed is always truth, and reason is always reason ; they have an
intrinsick and unalterable value, and constitute that intellectual gold which defies
destruction : but gold may be so concealed in baser matter, that only a chymist can

28 STYLE IN GENERAL.

Nor is it merely in the thought that we discern the potency
of these qualities residing. It belongs primarily to the fibre
of the writer's mind and the deep bent of his character.
Through a clean and clear style is revealed a mind clean and
clear, a nature too honest to let slipshod expression pass ; the
opposite holds, too, and a bemuddled mind or a shallow char-
acter betrays itself inevitably. Earnestness of conviction or
the lack of it, grace or coarseness, are in the soul's grain ; the
style is their mental photograph. The qualities that the writer
would impart to his expression he must cultivate in himself.1

Summary of the Qualities. — Corresponding to the main
directions that a writer's endeavors for effect may take, the
qualities of style reduce themselves to three: —

Clearness, which answers the endeavor to be understood ;

Force, which answers the endeavor to impress ;

Beauty, which answers the endeavor to please.2
For all general aims in discourse these qualities cover the
whole range of expression ; other qualities being interpreted
as aspects of these or as applications of them to purposes
more specific.

recover it ; sense may be so hidden in unrefined and plebeian words, that none but
philosophers can distinguish it ; and both may be so buried in impurities, as not to
pay the cost of their extraction." — Johnson, Lives of the Poets, Vol. i, p. 73.

1 The classic utterance of this truth is Milton's: —

" And long it was not after, when I was confirmed in this opinion, that he, who
would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, ought
himself to be a true poem, that is a composition and pattern of the best and honoura-
blest things, not presuming to sing high praises of heroic men or famous cities,
unless he have in himself the experience and the practice of all that which is praise-
worthy."— Milton, Apology for Smectymnuus.

The following remarks on the relation of style-qualities to character were inspired
by study of the mind and art of Tennyson : —

" Clearness in thought and words ought to be a part of a writer's religion ; it is
certainly a necessary part of his morality. Nay, to follow clearness like a star, clear-
ness of thought, clearness of phrase, in every kind of life, is the duty of all." —
Stopford Brooke, Tennyson, his Art and Relation to Modern Life, p. 5.

" We have critics not a few who regard sweetness and strength as attributes of
style, and are ignorant that they are not attributes of style, but attributes of mind
and character, expressed in style." — Dixon, A Tennyson Primer, p. 133.

2 Compare Wendell, English Composition, p. 193.

QUALITIES OF STYLE. 29

Clearness. — To be intelligible, to make one's self understood,
is the fundamental aim in all seriously meant writing ; an aim
prior to and largely promotive of all others. Not only what
is to add to the reader's information and knowledge, but what-
ever is to thrill his emotions or stir his fancy, must come to
him first through the brain, the thinking power. Hence the
primal need of clearness, in conception and expression. So
rigorously is this ideal of intelligibility held by conscientious
writers that no word or phrase that would puzzle the dullest
reader is willingly tolerated ; the supreme aim is, not merely
style that may be understood, but style that cannot fail to
be understood.1 No room for the lazy plea, " Not quite right,
but near enough," or for the arrogant one, "I cannot write
and provide brains too " ; the ideal is absolute, the occasion
universal.

To be clear, the writer must first be sure of a meaning very
definite and literal, and then say just what he means, without
seeming to say something else, or leaving the reader in doubt
what he does say.2 This requirement, so much easier to
define than to satisfy, looks two ways, toward the thought and
toward the reader ; and accordingly, the quality of clearness
takes two quite distinct aspects, each with its dominating
usages and procedures.

Precision : or Clearness in the Thought. — Obviously the first
and paramount duty is to be perfectly true to the thought, to
set it forth exactly as it is, whether hard or easy, simple or
involved.3 With the plain conceptions and events of everyday

1 " Non ut intellegere possit, sed ne omnino possit non intellegere, curandum." —
Quintilian. — Economy applies here; see p. 24, 1.

2 The technical name for this literal core of expression is denotation ; see Wen-
DBLL, English Composition, passim, and especially Chapter vi. " The secret of clear-
ness," he says, " lies in denotation." This important subject of denotation and
connotation will come up for detailed discussion later ; see below, pp. 34, 46, 75.

8 This first duty has already been repeatedly suggested, pp. 14, 18.

30 STYLE IN GENERAL.

life this is no great problem ; ideas do not transcend the com-
pass of the commonest words ; but when it comes to strenuous
and deep thought, requiring close analysis and discrimination,
evidently clearness and simplicity are not synonymous. An
easy word for an abstruse idea, while it may produce a sem-
blance of clearness, may actually becloud the thought more
than it helps it. Some degree of difficulty, as exacted by the
sphere of ideas in which one is moving, cannot be avoided.
The only sure resource is to work for the exact setting-forth
of the idea, nothing else, nothing less ; and the clearness thus
obtained, whether ideally easy or not, will be clearness of
thought, yielding a shapely idea, or as it is called, clear-^/
expression.

Such precision depends mainly on the writer's vocabulary,
the words he chooses to name his thought, rather than on the
way words are put together. The following are the principal
aspects that the endeavor for precise denotation assumes : —

i. Choice of words for the sake of their unique aptness,
their fine shades and degrees of meaning, their delicate impli-
cations and associations.

2. The judicious employment of helping and limiting expres-
sions, such defining elements as are needed to fix the true
sense and coloring in which the word should be understood.

3. Where the thought may gain by it, the juxtaposition of
words whose relation to each other, whether of likeness or
contrast, throws mutual light. This may often be done so
unobtrusively as to attract no special attention, yet be very
effective for its object.

While precision is the first and most incontestable object in
style, the literary ideal is not satisfied with being precise and
nothing else. Too exclusive endeavor after precision makes
the style stiff and pedantic, like, for instance, a law document ;
this fault is of course to be guarded against. The words and
colorings may be just as true to the idea, and yet the pains of

QUALITIES OF STYLE. 31

choosing them be so concealed that the reader absorbs the
thought without realizing the perfection of the art ; this is
what a writer of true literary sense will work for.

Perspicuity : or Clearness in the Construction. — As soon as
the claim of perfect fidelity to the thought is satisfied, the
next step is to adapt the style to the comprehension of the
reader. This, as has just been said, is practicable in different
degrees, according to the intrinsic difficulty of the thought ;
but in all cases the aim to be sought is the greatest plainness
and simplicity of which the thought is capable. The deriva-
tion of the word perspicuity, denoting the property of being
readily seen through, or as we express it by another word,
transparency, is a just indication of this quality of style.

Such simplicity of texture, such freedom from intricacy it
is, that we think of first under the general conception of clear-
ness. It is not necessarily a bald or rudimental style ; it may
indeed be the backbone and support of a full, richly colored,
even elaborate scheme of treatment, the unmarked source of
its vitality and power.1

That aspect of clearness which we thus name perspicuity
depends, as intimated above, for the most part on grammati-
cal and logical construction, on the way in which the reader
is kept aware of the mutual relations of words and phrases,
and of their orderly progress in building up the sentence and
paragraph. The following are the general aspects that such
regard for structure assumes : —

i. A keen grammatical sense ; instant adjustment of all syn-
tactical relations and connections of words : constant watch-

1 " lie [the great author] may, if so be, elaborate his compositions, or he may pour
out his improvisations, but in either case he has but one aim, which he keeps steadily
before him, and is conscientious and single-minded in fulfilling. That aim is to give
forth what he has within him ; and from his very earnestness it comes to pass that,
whatever be the splendor of his diction or the harmony of his periods, he has with
him the charm of an incommunicable simplicity." — Newman, Idea of a University,
p. 291.

32 STYLE IN GENERAL.

fulness against the two foes that most beset composition :
ambiguity, or structure that suggests two possible meanings ;
and vagueness, or structure that cannot with certainty be
reduced to any definite meaning.

2. Making sure that elements which are to be thought of
together, whether as principal and subordinate or as paired and
balanced against each other, be so treated by expression and
arrangement that the reader shall not fail to mark the relation.

3. Looking out for the joints and hinges of the structure,
that no gaps be left unbridged, and no new thought be intro-
duced too abruptly to produce its due effect. An ideally
clear thought is clear-moving, a continuous progress.

While centering chiefly in construction, perspicuity is not
unmindful of choice of words and figures, so far at least as to
require the simplest words and the homeliest illustrations
consistent with accuracy. To go farther than this, employ-
ing on the score of their plainness words and illustrations not
discriminative enough, is to sin against the thought, and in
the long run to deceive with a false semblance of clearness.1
Where such a clash between precision and perspicuity occurs,
the only safety is in keeping to precision. The difficulty
may, however, almost always be remedied, as we note in the
usage of careful writers, by repeating hard ideas in simpler or
more everyday terms.

Clearness based in the Intellect. — As related to the writer
himself, clearness, in its double aspect of precision and per-
spicuity, may be called the intellectual quality of style, the
quality wherein we see predominantly the thinking brain at

1 See above, p. 30. — Minto {Manual of English Prose Literature, p. 494) men-
tions this as a discount to the much-famed clearness of Paley;s style. " Perspicuity,"
he says, " is possessed by Paley in a very high degree, but the precision of his state-
ments and definitions is a good deal affected by his paramount desire to be popular.
Too clear-headed to run into confusion, he is at the same time anxious to accommo-
date himself to the plainest intelligence, and, like many simple writers, purchases
simplicity at the expense of exactness,"

QUALITIES OF STYLE. 33

work transferring its ideas fully and accurately to the mind
of the reader. The training for this clearness, therefore, is
just whatever best develops the thinking powers, in keenness,
in discrimination, in grasp, in calm poise and judgment ; but
besides this there is also needed much patient and systematic
culture in language, to subdue it to perfect flexibility and
obedience. To him who has a passion for clearness the
vocabulary and the grammar are a veritable workshop ; a
source also of the sternest practical interest.

II.

Force. — Clear and intelligible expression, being the staple,
the backbone of composition, is of course to be cultivated
first and most conscientiously of all ; but the cases in which
mere clearness is enough, without the aid of other qualities,
belong to the relatively elementary undertakings of litera-
ture, those works in which the bare information or reasoned
thought is all-sufficient to supply the interest. But when the
idea comes home more closely to reader and writer, — when
on the one hand it must gain a lodgment in dull minds or
stimulate a laggard attention, when on the other its impor-
tance kindles the writer's enthusiasm or stirs his deep emo-
tions,— there is in it or must be imparted to it greater life
than its merely intelligible statement would demand ; the
question of making it interesting and impressive comes to
the front. The various features that go to give life and vigor
to style we gather under the general name of force.

While by clearness the object is to economize the reader's
powers by making the style plain and easy, by force the
object is to economize indirectly by stimulating his mind to
do more, to realize more vividly or bring more interest and
ardor to the subject.1 Hence whatever imparts force to the
style is something that gives a kind of shock or challenge to
1 See above, p. 25, 2.

34 STYLE IN GENERAL.

the mind, urging it to some centre of interest. The ways
doing this may be grouped under two general principles.

Connotation : or Force through Choice of Expression. — By the
connotation of a word or phrase we mean what it implies or
makes one think of, over and beyond what it literally says.
Such connotation may suggest an associated object or idea ;
as when in saying, " The words immediately fell oily on the
wrath of the brothers," the writer makes us think not only of
mollifying words but of oil poured on agitated water. Or it
may suggest how the writer feels, and would have us feel,
about what he says ; as when in saying a thing he puts it not
as an assertion but as an exclamation, thus conveying with
it his feeling of wonder. Connotation, as it may take an
infinity of shadings and implications, may influence the reader
in the subtlest ways ; but just so far as it enriches thought or
rouses feeling, to that degree it infuses force into the style.

Only the more obvious ways of connotation can here be
noted ; others will be left for more detailed treatment in other
parts of the book.

i. The employment of vernacular words, words that connote
the vigor and plain simplicity of homely thought. A specific
word is stronger than a general or comprehensive one ; short
words ordinarily more forcible than long ; Saxon derivatives
than Latin or Greek; idioms than formal and bookish words.

2. The employment of descriptive words ; which, while
they have their relation to beauty of style, are yet more truly
instruments of force. By descriptive words is meant words
that portray some striking or concrete or picturesque aspect
of the subject ; connoting thus the vividness of an object of
sight. This is very useful in abstract subjects.

3. The employment of words in a tropical or polarized
sense ; as when they are used out of their natural place in
the vocabulary, or connote some implication that one would
not expect. Under this head comes the use of figurative

QUALITIES OF STYLE. 35

expression, in all its aspects. Such use of words gives them
force by setting the reader thinking about them.

4. The cutting out of the minor and expletive words of a
passage, so that the strong elements, the vital words, may-
stand forth unshaded.

Emphasis : or Force through Arrangement. — In oral discourse
emphasis may be given to any word by giving it greater stress
in enunciation. Written discourse is not open to this means ;
the reader has to judge what words are emphatic by the posi-
tion in which they are placed. Through the structure of the
sentence the emphasis is directed at the writer's will on the
points of special impressiveness ; these accordingly are points
at which force is concentrated.

The following are the main aspects of this means of secur-
ing force : —

1. Differences of stress, in all degrees of delicacy, are
secured by placing a sentence-element before or after some
other, at the beginning or end of the sentence or clause, or
somewhere out of its natural and expected place. The ability
to estimate accurately the effect of every smallest change in
order, and so to arrange the whole that every element will
seem to emphasize itself, is one of the most imperative and
valuable accomplishments in composition.

2. Antithesis, which has been implied as an arrangement
that promotes clearness by making one idea set off another,1
is no less truly an instrument of force, concentrating attention
as it does on paired or contrasted elements and thus putting
them into stress.

3. A strong impression needs in most cases to be a quick
impression. Hence one of the acknowledged promoters of
force is an arrangement or parsimony of structure which
secures brevity ; shown in some form of what is variously
known as condensed, pointed, or epigrammatic expression.

1 See above, p. 30, 3.

36 STYLE IN GENERAL.

In endeavoring to secure force by brevity occasions some-
times rise where there is a clash between force and clearness.1
For while clearness demands the presence of particles and
explanatory elements that though they articulate the thought
tend also to cumber its movement, force demands that these
be cut down or dispensed with, as far as may be, in order not
to enfeeble the important words. In such cases, when one
quality can be secured only at some expense to the other, the
question must be decided by the determinate object in view,
the writer considering whether that object can best be pro-
moted by fulness of detail or by vigor of impression.2

Note. — A brief and pointed assertion, like an aphorism or proverb,
sets one thinking ; an assertion detailed and amplified does one's thinking,
as it were, for him. The former is the more forcible, the latter more clear.
Emerson's expression, " Hitch your wagon to a star," is striking by its
brevity ; one remembers it and is stimulated by it ; but to think out what
it means and how it applies requires some meditation, On the other hand,
if it were traced out in some amplified form it would run the risk of becom-
ing tame and platitudinous. Skilful writers, and especially public speakers,
generally combine the two ways of expression, the detailed for explanation,
the briefer for summing up and enforcing. Compare Whateley, Elements
of Rhetoric, p. 351.

Force based in Emotion and Will. — As related to the writer
himself, force in style is the result and evidence of some strong
emotion at work infusing vigor into his words. He realizes
vividly the truth of what he says, and so it becomes intense
and fervid ; he has a deep conviction of its importance, and

1 The classic recognition of this clash is Horace's well-known remark : —

" brevis esse laboro,
Obscurus fio." — De Arte Poetica, 25.

2 Brevity thus goes deeper than style and relates itself to the organism of subject-
matter. " In order to be brief," says De Quincey, " a man must take a short sweep of
view : his range of thought cannot be extensive ; and such a rule, applied to a general
method of thinking, is fitted rather to aphorisms and maxims as upon a known sub-
ject, than to any process of investigation as upon a subject yet to be fathomed." —
De Quincey, Essay on Style, Works (Riverside edition), Vol. iv, p. 214.

QUALITIES OF STYLE. 37

so it becomes cogent and impressive. Along with this fervor
of feeling his will is enlisted ; he is determined, as it were, to
make his reader think as he does, and to make his cause pre-
vail. Every employment of word and figure is tributary to
this.

Genuine force in style cannot be manufactured : if the style
has not serious conviction to back it, it becomes contorted ;
if it has not a vivifying emotion, it becomes turgid. Force is
the quality of style most dependent on character.

The writer's culture for force, therefore, is in its deepest
analysis a culture of character. To think closely and seri-
ously ; to insist on seeing fact or truth for one's self and not
merely echo it as hearsay ; to cherish true convictions, not
mere fashions or expedients of thinking, — these are the traits
in the culture of character that make for forcible and virile
expression.

III.

Beauty. — This third fundamental quality of style is supple-
mentary to the others, that is, not ordinarily to be sought
until first clearness and then force are provided for, and not
to be cultivated at expense to them. Beauty, however, is just
as necessary, and, broadly interpreted, just as universal, as are
clearness and force. It is the quality of style which answers
to the endeavor to please.

It can easily be seen how real is the occasion for beauty.
An idea may be stated with perfect clearness, may make also
a strong impression on the reader's mind ; and yet many of
its details may be an offense to his taste, or crude expression
and harsh combinations of sound may impair the desired effect
by compelling attention to defective form. Any such disturb-
ing element is a blemish none the less though the reader may
not be able to explain or even locate it. His vague sense that
the form of expression is crude and bungling, that the thought

38 STYLE IN GENERAL.

therefore is not having free course, is sufficient reason, albeit
negative, for seeking a quality of beauty in style, whereby it
may be a satisfaction to the reader's taste, as well as to his
thought and conviction.

A prevalent misapprehension may here be corrected. Beauty
in style is not the same as ornament ; it does not necessitate
word-painting or imagery or eloquence. The question whether
such elaborations shall be introduced belongs to the peculiar
susceptibilities of a subject or the individual bent of a writer ;
the question of beauty, on the other hand, is so fundamental
that a definition must be sought for the quality which will fit
all types of subject and treatment. It is a requisite of all style,
simple as well as elaborate.

Beauty is a quality both negative and positive ; to be secured,
that is, partly by the pruning away of what is unpleasing and
partly by traits peculiar to itself. In this double character it
is here analyzed.

Euphony : the Negative Preliminary. — Asa matter of work-
manship, the quality of beauty depends largely on sound : the
writer is working to make his words read smoothly, according
to his standard of smoothness. An indispensable requisite,
therefore, is the education of the ear and the constant test of
one's work by reading aloud, thus forming the habit of esti-
mating and balancing sounds. The following are the main
aspects of revision thus engendered : —

i. A constant detective sense for harsh-sounding words
and for combinations or sequences of words hard to pro-
nounce together.

2. Quickness of ear for what are called jingles : recur-
rences of the same or similar sounds, like an inadvertent
rhyme. Much the same effect is produced by too frequent
repetition of the same word in a passage. No one can realize,
whose attention has not been called to it, how liable every
writer is to these unnoticed lapses in sound ; they constitute,

QUALITIES OF STYLE. 39

after typographical errors, one of the chief kinds of blemish
found in reading proof.

3. A matter requiring still finer education both of ear and
of critical acumen is a sense for that general tone and move-
ment of the style which, while not definably harsh or jingling,
is crude, lumbering, heavy. Not always is this reducible to
exact causes ; it appears oftenest in some form of monotony,
as in a predominance of long words, or sentences of like length
and construction, or pet habits of expression.

Harmony : the Positive Element. — It is only negatively that
euphony, or smoothness of expression, may be regarded as
beauty of style. It makes beauty possible by clearing away
obstructions, leaving as it were the field open, but the real
beauty is something positive, with a character of its own as
definite as force or clearness. For this character it is not
easy to find an adequate name ; the nearest, perhaps, is Har-
mony, a term here chosen to indicate that fine correspondence
of word and movement to the sense and spirit of discourse
which is doubtless the vital principle to which beauty in style
is reducible.1 The following are the salient ways in which this
harmony reveals itself : —

1. The spontaneous answer of sound to sense; most pal-
pable in prose in the choice of descriptive words, which have
a physical reference, but also equally real in the subtler con-
sonance of words to spiritual sentiments and moods.

2. The rhythm of phrase and sentence, a music rising from
the finely touched emotion of the writer and the fitting key of
the subject-matter. After the measured rhythm (metre) of
poetry, this music is most apprehensible in the impassioned
sweep of eloquence and the graceful flow of imaginative prose ;
but rhythm of some kind is equally real and present, though

1 " All beauty is in the long run only fineness of truth, or what we call expression,
the finer accommodation of speech to that vision within." — Pater on Style, Appre-
ciations, p. 6.

40 STYLE IN GENERAL.

]

revealing a different movement, in all well-written discourse,
even the most matter-of-fact.

3. Underlying all the foregoing is what may be called the
architectonic nature of the style, that artistic structure which
is analogous to a crystal, with all its molecules unerringly
deposited, or rather to a vital organism, with all its functions
answering to one another and contributing each its part to a
rounded whole. Just so a satisfying passage in discourse so
builds together its parts as to conform in sound, word, and
phrase to an organic ideal in the writer's mind.

Beauty based in Imagination and Taste. — As related to the
writer himself, beauty is the aesthetic quality of style ; it is
the outcome when the shaping imagination is at work on its
keen sense of fact or of organic thought,1 and when the taste
has developed a standard of language to which the thought-
organism spontaneously adjusts itself. A writer's individual
type of beauty in style, as it is the highest reach of his liter-
ary faculty, is also the slowest to mature ; coming as it does
with the gradual discovery and discipline of tastes and that
sureness of touch which makes the writer aware of his mas-
tery. Beauty, being the aesthetic quality, is preeminently the
artistic.

The best discipline for the aesthetic sense in style is famil-
iarizing one's self with what is beautiful in literature and
thought. By a law of nature he who dwells habitually among
beautiful thoughts will become imbued, in mind and feeling,
with their beauty. Here is where the study of good literature
renders its service ; especially of that literature which has
survived fluctuations in fashion and taste and become classic.

1 " For just in proportion as the writer's aim, consciously or unconsciously, comes
to be the transcribing, not of the world, not of mere fact, but of his sense of it, he
becomes an artist, his v/orhjine art ; and good art ... in proportion to the truth of
his presentment of that sense ; as in those humbler or plainer functions of literature
also, truth — truth to bare fact, there — is the essence of such artistic quality as they
may have." — Pater on Style, Appreciations, p. 6.

QUALITIES OF STYLE. 41

It ministers to a severe and permanent standard of taste, lift-
ing the student free from the superficial and tawdry. Thus
the effects of this discipline are all the more potent because
in large proportion they are wrought unconsciously ; they are
in the atmosphere of the region in which the writer is at
home.1

IV.

Temperament of Qualities. — On a musical instrument, the
scale of each key, instead of being tuned to an absolute
standard of pitch, is modified to some extent so that its
notes may be equally in tune as parts of other scales. For
an analogous modification of the qualities of style, each
yielding something of its absolute claim in order to secure
the integrity of the others, we may here borrow the same
name, temperament.

While each of the qualities is indispensable and seems in
turn, as attention is centred upon it, to present the only
worthy claim, none of them can do its best work alone. Cul-
tivated exclusively, without regard for the others, each in its
way leaves the style unbalanced, untempered ; it is in fact
only part of a style, the complete ideal requiring all the quali-
ties to work together as one. For study we have had to con-
sider them apart ; but in the perfected literary organism, while
one quality or another, predominating, may give a prevailing
tone to the discourse, all the qualities are blended and tem-
pered to produce unity of effect.

Without going into the matter minutely, we may here name
under each quality of style, the two chief foes that beset it
according as that quality is untempered by the others.

i. A clear style, untempered by the emotional element
which produces vigor, is dull. Untempered by the imagina-

1 The cultivation of taste, as a training for adjusting style to thought, has already
been discussed ; see above, p. 21.

42 STYLE Itf GENERAL.

tive element which introduces a sense of grace and beauty, it
is dry.1

2. A forcible style, or rather its elements, untempered by
that clear and sane thinking whose essence is good sense, —
that is, wherein emotion dominates at the expense of intellec-
tual sobriety and sturdiness, — becomes rant or bombast.2
Untempered by that flexible imagination whose essence is tact
and good taste, — that is, where the will to impress dominates
at the expense of urbanity and beauty, — it becomes hard and
metallic.3

3. A style that seeks only the beauty of sound and imagery,
untempered by a passion for clear simplicity, — that is, where
thought is at discount before elegant form, — becomes labored
and trivial. Untempered by earnest conviction and will, —
that is, wherein emotion is indeed present but not robust or
deep-reaching enough, — it becomes maudlin and sentimental.

In each case above described, the corrective lies not in any
manipulation of word or phrase but in throwing one's self into
the spirit of the supplementing quality ; in other words, set-
ting the whole inner man in active work, the sturdy brain,
the vitalizing earnestness and will, and the tactful meditative
taste. It is doubtful if a subject that cannot call on all these
for aid is worth writing up at all.

The Element of Repose. — The name temperament suggests
the mood that ideally controls the processes of composition :
namely, that reserve power, that large repose of mastery, which
forbids forcing any quality or device to its extreme, and which
broadens the intellectual and emotional horizon to recognize

1 The collision between the two aspects of clearness, precision and perspicuity,
has been discussed on p. 32, above.

2 Its unbalanced extreme is described by Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act v, Scene 5 : ■

" full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."

8 The clash between brevity and clearness, and the treatment of it, have been dis-
cussed above, p. 36.

QUALITIES OF STYLE. 43

the proper claims of all. The highest reach of good art is
repose, that self-justifying quality wherein everything is obvi-
ously right, in place, coloring, and degree. If in any point
the work is violent or unfit, there is lack of wise temperament
somewhere, some element is forced at expense to others. And
the only adequate adjuster of the qualities is something deeper
than skill ; in the last analysis it is a sound, balanced, mas-
terful character.1

1 Hamlet's advice to the players (Hamlet, Act. iii, Scene 2) is as full of good sense
for writers as for speakers : " Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus ;
but use all gently : for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of
your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness."

BOOK II. DICTION.

Definition of Diction. — The term diction is the name here
adopted for that aspect or department of style which has to
do with words, — primarily with the choice of words, but also,
in a general way, and independently of the specific details of
composition, with the connection and arrangement of words.
The kind of words habitually used, and peculiarities in the
management of them, give a coloring or texture to the style
by which we may identify it with some type of diction.1

Every author has individualities of diction, and so has every
kind of literature. But below these personal and class char-
acteristics there is also a general standard or ideal of diction
which every writer owes it to his mother-tongue to regard
sacredly. For while from one point of view language is a
working-tool, to be used according to our free sense of mas-
tery, from another it is our heritage from an illustrious line of
writers and speakers — to be approached, therefore, in the spirit
of reverence, and loyally guarded from hurt and loss. Every
one who has much to do with language feels the weight of this
solemn obligation.

The universal standard of diction is best expressed, per-
haps, by the word purity : the writer must see to it first of
all that he keep his mother-tongue unsullied, inviolate ; and
this by observing, in all his choice of language, the laws of
derivation, formation, good usage, and good taste. Whatever

1 " The culture of diction is the preparatory stage for the formation of style." —
Earle, English Prose, p. 213.

DICTION. 45

liberties he takes, — and there is all the room he needs for
untrammeled expression, — he must first move in obedience
to these fundamental laws ; else his literary deportment, what-
ever genius may underlie it, will have blemishes exactly analo-
gous to coarseness and bad manners in conversation.

The ensuing six chapters (iii-viii) traverse the field of dic-
tion, beginning with particular considerations relating to the
use of words and figures, and going on to more general aspects
and types.

CHAPTER III.
CHOICE OF WORDS FOR DENOTATION.

What is meant by the denotation of a word has already
been intimated, both directly and by contrast with connota-
tion l ; it is what the word literally says, as distinguished from
its secondary associations and implications. To get at this,
its fundamental note, so to say,2 to make sure of this whatever
else is obtained or sacrificed, is the first endeavor in the choice
of words ; an endeavor that takes more time and pains, prob-
ably, than any other procedure in composition. For in this
earnest quest for the right word, preeminently, is enlisted that
insatiable passion for accuracy, in thinking as well as expres-
sion,8 which is the spring and conscience of literary art, govern-
ing alike all moods grave or gay, all styles from the severest to
the most colloquial. It is as hard, though hard in another way,
to find the unique word in a sketch as in a scientific treatise.

To secure the proper denotation of words for one's purpose
a variety of considerations may have to be taken into account,
reducible, in general, to the following four groups.

I. ACCURATE USE.

This, which answers the endeavor to adjust the word exactly
to the meaning had in mind, has been so insisted upon already

1 See above, pp. 9, 29 and footnote 2, and 34.

2 A vitally chosen word is like a bell : in addition to its fundamental note it has
overtones, which in various ways enrich its meaning ; and these it takes mainly from
its setting and associations ; see below, p. 93.

3 See above, p. 14 ; also under Precision, p. 29 sq. — " The first valuable power in
a reasonable mind, one would say, was the power of plain statement, or the power to

CHOICE OF WORDS FOR DENOTATION. 47

that farther definition of it may be dismissed here with a single
remark. The meaning to which the writer is trying to fit his
word may lie in thought alone, or it may carry with it a mood,
impassioned or humorous or imaginative ; and so the search
may be not only for a closely discriminative word, but for a
word vigorous or facetious or descriptive. In any case, how-
ever, the effort is simply for accurate adjustment to the idea
as conceived 1 ; this covers the whole field, and no other use
of words, whatever its claim, can interfere with it.

Of the culture of accuracy in the broad sense the following
are leading phases : —

i. Finding the Right Shade of Meaning This is done by

the habitual weighing of synonyms, a practice more constant
with careful writers, probably, than even the study of the
dictionary.

Synonyms are words alike in meaning. As, however, no
two words cover exactly the same field of meaning, use may
be made both of their points of likeness and their points of
divergence to secure fine shadings.

Note. — The practical use of synonyms may be illustrated from the
ordinary process of choosing a word. Some word comes to mind. It is
nearly the word wanted ; but perhaps it sounds ill with other words of the
sentence, or the writer may have a vague sense that the vocabulary con-
tains a closer fit, if he could but find it. He takes his Dictionary of Syno-
nyms and turns to the word that has already occurred to him. Let it be,
for instance, the word judgment, the nearest word he can think of for a par-
ticular quality of mind that he wishes to name. Here is the result : —

" Judgment, n. i. Discernment, understanding, intelligence, discrimina-

receive things as they befall, and to transfer the picture of them to another mind
unaltered." — Emerson on The Superlative, Works, Vol. x, p. 164.

1 Of Flaubert's passion for accuracy, which has become typical in literary history,
Pater remarks : "All the recognized flowers, the removable ornaments of literature
(including harmony and ease in reading aloud, very carefully considered by him)
counted certainly ; for these too are part of the actual value of what one says. lint
still, after all, with Flaubert, the search, the unwearied research, was not for the smooth,
or winsome, or forcible word, as such, as with false Ciceronians, but quite simply and
honestly, for the word's adjustment to its meaning." — Appreciations, p. 28.

48 • DICTION.

:pth,

tion, taste, sagacity, penetration, wisdom, brains, prudence, ballast, dept
sense, mother-wit, quick parts, common-sense, good sense, long head.

" 2. Determination, decision, conclusion, opinion, notion, estimate.

" 3. {Law.) Sentence, award, decree.

"4. {Psychol.) Power of judgment, intellect, faculty of comparison
synthesis, unitive faculty, faculty of thought.

" 5. {Log.) Sentence, proposition."

Here, certainly, would seem to be material enough ; but we will suppose
a more delicate sense still haunts him, the nearest approach to which is the
word sagacity. He turns to this word, and here is the result : —

"Sagacity, n. 1. Sagaciousness, quickness of scent.

" 2. Shrewdness, acuteness, sharpness, astuteness, penetration, ingenuity,
discernment, perspicacity, sense, insight, mother- wit, quickness, readiness,
wisdom."

But he is very hard to suit ; and though the word perspicacity (we will
suppose) is almost what he wants, he will try again, for the search is becom-
ing interesting as well as exacting, and here is the result : —

"Perspicacity,??. 1. Quick-sightedness, acuteness of sight.

" 2. Perspicaciousness, acuteness, sharpness, shrewdness, discernment,
penetration, sagacity, astuteness, insight, acumen."

Acumen, — here at last, let us suppose, is the word that vaguely
haunted him all along. He tests by the dictionary and finds that it just
suits his purpose. In seeking it, too, he has traversed a whole realm of
kindred words, which will hardly be used so loosely hereafter as
heretofore.

Soule's Dictionary of Synonyms, from which the foregoing lists are
quoted, is a very valuable desk companion for work of this kind.

Used for their likeness, synonyms enable one to repeat an
idea in varied terms, thus disguising the fact of repetition,
while at the same time the new word brings a new aspect of
the thought to view. Used for their unlikeness, synonyms
enable one to determine delicate yet important distinctions
in the thought, distinctions on which, perhaps, much, depends.
In both uses synonyms are often employed cumulatively ; the
successive words, nearly alike, yet distinct, serving as it were
to build up the thought stage by stage before the reader's
eyes, so that the whole idea is compassed by no one term, but
by several added together.

CHOICE OF WORDS FOR DENOTATION. 49

Examples. — i. Synonyms used for repetition. The need of a repeti-
tionary word may be illustrated by the following sentence : " The House of
Commons on Saturday was the scene of another of those discreditable scenes
which of late years have, unhappily, become only too frequent." Substitute
for the word scenes the word occurrences, and the repetition is disguised.

The following passage is quoted to show how unobtrusively and yet
effectively the sense is conserved by the employment "not always of abso-
lute synonyms, but of words which for the purpose in hand have at once a
harmonious sense and a various sound: — moribund, expire, die {extinc-
tion^ ; — flout, insult, outrage, defy ; — un/ionoured, disgrace, ignominious ; —
blind, unmindful, indifferent."

" The London County Council yesterday practically made an end of the
Metropolitan Board of Works. That moribund and discredited body might
have been allowed to expire quietly on the ' appointed day,' or, as Lord
Rosebery put it, to ' wrap its robe round it and die with dignity,' if it had
not resolved to flout its successor, to insult Parliament, to outrage public-
opinion, and to defy the Executive Government. . . .

" After what Mr. Ritchie said on Friday there can be no doubt, we pre-
sume, that this will be the end of the Metropolitan Board of Works. The
Board will never meet again. The good works that it did in the days of
its ingenuous youth will be forgotten amid the misdeeds of its unhonoured
age and the disgrace of its sudden and ignominious extinction. There is,
indeed, some danger that less than justice may be done to its memory.
Universal London will feel that it is well rid of a body which was so blind
to its own dignity, so unmindful of the plainest precepts of public duty, so
indifferent, indeed, to the ordinary restraints of public decency as the Metro-
politan Board of Works has shown itself in the last few weeks."1

2. Synonyms used for distinction. The following are instances of fine
discrimination between nearly synonymous words.

From Carlyle : " He was a man that brought himself much before the
world; confessed that he eagerly coveted fame, or if that were not possible,
notoriety ; of w?hich latter as he gained far more than seemed his due, the
public were incited, not only by their natural love of scandal, but by a
special ground of envy, to say whatever ill of him could be said." 2

From James Russell Lowell : " The Latin has given us most of our
canorous words, only they must not be confounded with merely sonorous
ones, still less with phrases that, instead of supplementing the sense,
encumber it." — "In verse, he [Dryden] had a pomp which, excellent in
itself, became pompousness in his imitators." :5

1 Both examples, with remark, from EARLE, English Prose, pp. 201, 203.

2 Carlyle, Essay on BoswclV s Johnson. 8 Lowell, Essay on Dryden.

SO DICTION.

3. Synonyms used cumulatively. No single one of the following sj
nyms gives the whole idea ; it has to be gathered from all.

From the North American Review : " It is true that all these criticisms
were written some years ago, and in the meantime a tendency toward a
better state of things has begun to show itself. But at present it is only
a tendency, a symptom, a. foreshadowing."

From James Russell Lowell: "So also Shakespeare no doubt projected
himself in his own creations ; but those creations never became so
fectly disengaged from him, so objective, or, as they used to say, extrh
to him, as to react upon him like real and even alien existences."

yjectea
so per-

2. Securing the Right Degree of Meaning. — Words practically-
synonymous differ from each other as often in degree as in shad-
ing ; one is stronger, more intense, more dignified, or more sweep-
ing and absolute than the other. A recognition of this quality
underlies climax ; and the vivid feeling of it, with the skill to
put feeling into words, is the source of vigor in expression.

Examples. — 1. Of varying intensity of meaning. In the following,
from Pitt, the difference in the words used is mainly a difference in degree :
" I am astonished, I am shocked, to hear such principles confessed ; to hear
them avowed in this house and in this country."

2. Of too absolute or sweeping terms. " There are very good proofs
that Chaucer was a Wyckliffite." The difficulty with the word proofs is
that it is too strong, too absolute ; history would not bear it out. The
word indications is as strong as one has data for saying. — "An attempt
to justify the treachery of Benedict Arnold " is the title of a paper that
really undertook a task much less hardy ; the softer word extenuate would
better name what was intended.

3. The dashing, off-hand words used in the excitement of conversation,
such as " I have a horrible cold," " I am dying to hear about your visit,"
"The whole affair was simply perfect," err principally in degree; and if
somewhat excusable on the score of emotion (see under Spoken Diction,
p. 122), are after all too intense to be at all definite, and the habitual use of
them may lead to great poverty and lack of sharpness in vocabulary. In
this respect they are as bad as slang ; see below, p. 64.

3. Support from Derivation and History. — Beyond doubt the
most valuable aid to the accurate and vital choice of words

CHOICE OF WORDS FOR DENOTATION. 51

is afforded by a knowledge of their root-meanings, by which
latter is meant not the unsympathetic knowledge which comes
from looking up derivations in a catalogue, though this is
better than nothing, but that more intimate feeling or tact
which comes from familiarity with the structure and spirit
of the original language. Herein lies the true practical value
of classical study : it gives ancestry and family distinction to
one's mother-tongue. A word whose derivation is felt defines
itself ; the writer is so far forth independent of a dictionary.

Examples. — Under the foregoing paragraph the difference between
the two words justify and extenuate is felt, and the accurate use of them
assured, as soon as one thinks of the Latin originals underlying them, Jus-
tus and facto on the one hand, and tenuis on the other. So also between
the two words (p. 49, 2) canorous (cano, " to sing ") and sonorous (sono, " to
make a noise ").

In the following sentence Dr. O. W. Holmes has the support of deriva-
tion for deepening the meaning of a common word : " He used to insist on
one small point with a certain philological precision, namely, the true mean-
ing of the word ' cure.' He would have it that to cure a patient was simply
to care for him. I refer to it as showing what his idea was of the relation
of the physician to the patient. It was indeed to care for him, as if his life
were bound up in him, to watch his incomings and outgoings, to stand
guard at every avenue that disease might enter, to leave nothing to chance ;
not merely to throw a few pills and powders into one pan of the scales of
Fate, while Death the skeleton was seated in the other, but to lean with
his whole weight on the side of life, and shift the balance in its favor if it
lay in human power to do it." 1

In the following sentence Matthew Arnold builds his whole conception
of urbanity on the support of the root-word urbs : "For not .having the
lucidity of a large and centrally placed intelligence, the provincial spirit
has not its graciousness ; it does not persuade, it makes war ; it has not
urbanity, the lone of the city, of the centre, the tone which always aims at
a spiritual and intellectual effect, and not excluding the use of banter, never
disjoins banter itself from politeness, from felicity."2

1 Holmes, Medical Essays, Works (Riverside edition), Vol. ix, p. 307.

2 ARNOLD, lissays in Criticism, First Series, p. 66. — Derivation is an impor-
tant aid in Exposition ; see below, p. 576.

52 DICTION.

A knowledge of derivation alone, however, may be mislead-
ing, for sometimes in the course of their history words pass
through different shadings and applications, until their root-
meaning is only very indirectly helpful. The present status
of a word also must be recognized — not a difficult or uncer-
tain task for one whose habitual observation of etymology
has sharpened his sense of words.1

Examples. — In the verse, "And when he was come into the house
Jesus prevented him, saying, What thinkest thou, Simon? of whom do the
kings of the earth take custom and tribute ? " the root-meaning of the word
(from pre and venid) is followed ; but since the translation was made the
word prevent has so changed in meaning that it is no longer an accurate
word.

It is interesting to trace the history of such words as pagan, heathen,
barbarian, villain, knave, knight, and see how, in addition to what they
reveal of original meaning, they have preserved the spiritual attitude and
sentiment of their original users. To trace the steps by which the word
nice connects itself with the Latin nescius would be quite baffling and
unpractical ; one must depend wholly on its present status.

II. INTELLIGIBLE USE.

The adaptation of the word to the idea, which calls for
accurate use, has its limits. The word must also be adapted
to the reader ; and in general literary work the reader must
be treated not as a learned man but as a man of average
information and intelligence. In the choice of words, there-
fore, the sensible rule is to keep as close to everyday habits
of speech and thinking as is consistent with accuracy ; and
where the subject-matter is necessarily abstruse, endeavor t(

1 The science which treats of the development of words through different sens
is called Semantology ; see Earle, English Prose, p. 137. Another good resu
of familiarity with the history of words is thus described by Pater, Appreciations,
p. 12 : "And then, as the scholar is nothing without the historic sense, he will be apt
to restore not really obsolete or really worn-out words, but the finer edge of words
still in use: ascertain, communicate, discover — words like these it has been part
of our ' business ' to misuse."

CHOICE OF WORDS FOR DENOTATION. 53

see it through common eyes and translate so far as practi-
cable into the current medium.

The following considerations are important in adapting
words to the reader.

4. The Tissue of Idiom. — Idioms are turns of expression
peculiar to the language ; generally irregular, not to be squared
with strict grammar, and for that reason having the flavor of
sturdy unstudied speech. A test of an idiom is that it cannot
be translated literally into any other language. At first effect
rugged, perhaps odd and racy of the soil, it is after all quite
consistent with all due dignity and refinement, while it adds
a strength and homeliness that no other way of speaking
could do. As the best basis or ground-tissue of plain lan-
guage, therefore, idiom is to be valued and cultivated ; it is
preeminently the medium through which cultured and uncul-
tured may feel their common interests and kinship.1

In certain stages of culture a young writer is apt to regard
everything that presents any ruggedness of diction, or that is
not transparently conformed to grammatical rules, as a blem-
ish ; and he is tempted to smooth down everything into pro-
priety and primness. This tendency is to be watched and
repressed, for in yielding to it, even in the interests of elegance,
a writer may easily throw away much of the native strength
and character of his mother-tongue.

Examples. — 1. The following, from the great store of English idioms,
will suffice merely to give an idea of idiomatic homeliness and flavor : " It
was something that he could not put up with " ; " They unexpectedly got

1 " I have been careful to retain as much idiom as I could, often at the peril of
being called ordinary and vulgar. . . . Every good writer has much idiom ; it is the
lif<: ;ind spirit of language : and none such ever entertained a fear or apprehension
that strength and sublimity were to be lowered and weakened by it." — Landor,
Imaginary Conversations, Vol. i, p. 150 {Demosthenes and Eiibulides).

" In the breath of the native idiom there is as it were a moral fragrance, akin to
the love of home and domestic faith ; — it is in discourse what the tenderness of nat-
ural piety is in the beauty of human character." — Earle, English Prose, p. 30S.

54 DICTION.

the start of . him " ; " In the long run this will prove its utility " ; "A man
instinctively tries to get rid of his thought in conversation or print as soon
as it is matured " ; " He could never get used to this new manner of living."

2. While the above examples serve to illustrate the flavor of idiom, the
extent to which idiom is a tissue, a basis of common speech, needs to be
illustrated by enumerating some of the most prevalent idioms of English: —

a. The double genitive ; as " that dark and tempestuous life of Swift's "
(where one possessive is expressed phrasally, the other by inflection).

b. The noun phrase, one noun doing duty as adjective for another; as,
" the country schoolmaster," " a two-foot rule," " the small coals man."

c. The English use of shall and will, should and would, of which more
under Phraseology ; see below, p. 233.

d. It with singular verb and plural or collective predicate ; as, " For
who, when they had heard, provoked ? — nay was it not all who came out
from Egypt by means of Moses ? "

e. The use, in many cases, of the adjective form for the adverbial, and
its obviously greater naturalness; as, "speak louder," "walk faster"
{"speak more loudly," "walk more rapidly" are hard to tolerate).

f. The use of a preposition at the end of a clause ; as, " Where do you
come from ? " " What are you blaming me for ? " " This is a thing I can-
not get used to." (The alternative expressions, " Whence " or " From
whence do you come ? " " For what are you blaming me ? " " This is a thing
to which I cannot get used" or "become accustomed," sound bookish.)

Grammar, as Professor Earle remarks,1 is the natural enemy
of idiom, and is continually trying to replace its rugged forms
by something more amenable to rule. Of course, wherever
grammar succeeds, it, rather than idiom, is the arbiter of
usage.

Note. — Grammatical insistence has succeeded, for example, in banish-
ing " it is me," which used to be natural and idiomatic, and substituting
" it is I." Also, whereas men used to say, " I do not doubt but what this
is so," it is at once better grammar and better usage to say, "I do not
doubt that this is so." The word but is sometimes retained even when
what is changed to that ; but this is unnecessary. The proper particles to
use with doubt are : affirmative, " I doubt if, " " I doubt whether " ; nega-
tive, " I do not doubt that."

1 Earle, English Prose, p. 255.

CHOICE OF WORDS FOR DENOTATION. 55

5. Provincialisms, Americanisms, Dialect. — Provincialisms
are words, idioms, or meanings current in some limited region,
but not universal enough in usage to be admissible in general
literature. Within their district they are accepted conversa-
tional forms ; elsewhere they sound somewhat like slang ;
employed in literature they savor of crudeness and lack of
culture.

Examples of Provincialisms. — The word clever, in the sense of
good-natured ; as, " He is so clever that he will do anything for you " ; likely,
in the sense of promising ; as, " William is a likely lad " ; favor, in the sense
of resemble ; as, " He favors his father " ; near, in the sense of close or
stingy; as, " He is an honest man and just, but a little near " (a New Eng-
land provincialism, savoring of euphemism) ; smart, in the sense of able ;
as, " Luke is the smartest scholar in his class "; mad, in the sense of angry ;
as, " Such treatment as this makes me mad." For the proper use of these
words consult the dictionary.

Americanisms are words or phrases wherein, owing to vary-
ing conditions of life and history, American usage has come
to differ from British. For the use of these we are much criti-
cised by our friends across the water, as if they, being the
mother nation, must necessarily set the standard and we
count as provincial ; but the truth is, while some of our ways
of speaking, in the light of standard literature, are provincial,
some of theirs are equally so ; while for the rest, our peculiar
usage has as good right and as good pedigree as theirs. There
is no more call on us to ape their manner of speech than on
them to ape ours.1

Examples. — The American use of the v^ox^. guess, for think or conjec-
ture, is indeed too provincial for literary usage ; but so, it would seem, is
the English use of different to for different from. We have a peculiar use
of the word right, as in " Put it right there " ; and of the expression right
away for immediately ; these are provincial. So, on the other side, is the
use of very pleased for very much pleased and directly or immediately for

1 BRANDER Matthews, Americanisms and Briticisms, pp. 1-31.

56 DICTION.

as soon as ; for example : " Directly the mistake was discovered the leaf was
cancelled " ; " Immediately the maid had departed, little Clare deliberately
exchanged night attire for that of day." In many cases like these the
standard is with neither side, both being alike provincial.

In other cases the standard is with both ; that is, both usages are equally
good and equally worthy of a place in literature, representing as they do
perfectly natural variations where nations so widely separate are engaged
in naming the same or corresponding things. Accordingly, we say freight
train for the English goods train ; street-car for their tram-car or tram ;
railroad for their railway ; editorial for their leader ; editorial paragraph
for their leaderette. Such variations are neither avoidable nor deplorable.

Dialect or patois, apart from its occasional use for flavor
or local color,1 calls for a word here as an important source
of addition to the vocabulary. The words imported by story-
writers and tourists from the mountains or backwoods rank
simply as provincialisms, and are subject to the cautions
regarding such. Another class of words, however, forms an
element of graver omen : those numerous terms and phrases
picked from the argot of the mining-camp, the cow-boy
ranch, the gambling den, and the slum, and turned loose
into a long-suffering vocabulary. Largely unintelligible, their
connotation, even when understood, is so apt to be low and
immoral that proficiency in them is productive of more harm
than good.

Note. — The "Chimmie Fadden " stories will occur to the student as
representative of this unsavory exploitation of coarse dialect. While their
raciness is undenied, it is, after all, the raciness of abysmal vulgarity. The
serious attitude of a writer toward such aberrations of usage is emphati-
cally a case for the admonition given on p. 44, above.

6. Technical Terms and Coloring. — Technical terms are
words peculiar to some art, science, industry, or other special-
ized pursuit ; indispensable, therefore, in their own sphere

1 This aspect of dialect, with the cautions and liberties regarding it, will come up
for treatment under Manufactured Diction; see below, p. 134.

CHOICE OF WORDS FOR DENOTATION. 57

and in writings intended for specialists, but for the most part
unknown outside.

Example of Technical (Scientific) Terminology. — In the fol-
lowing, taken from an article in The Journal of Geology, the prevalence of
geological terms, though entirely fitting for those scholars to whom alone
the article has interest, removes the language from the standard of literary
usage : —

" Here the formation is composed of well-foliated, fine-grained, musco-
vite-biotite-schist with abundant mica. The molar contact is found on the
eastern end of the hill. It strikes N. 250 W., and is parallel to the schistos-
ity of the mica-schist and to the pronounced foliation of the porphyritic
granite. All the structure planes dip westward at a high angle. Going
across the strike from the contact toward the porphyritic granite a remark-
able series of elongated horses of the schist interrupt the continuity of the
granite. They are usually much longer than their width. ... In most
cases there is a definite orientation of the horses parallel to the contact
line, while the foliation of the porphyritic granite wraps around the inclu-
sion in a significant way. They are uniformly schistose with that structure
as well developed as in the main body. Crumpling of the horses is also
characteristic. For about two hundred yards east of the contact, the
schist is cut by several intercalated sheets of porphyritic granite, varying
from five to ten yards in thickness. Their phenocrystic feldspars lie paral-
lel to the walls between which the sills were intruded." x

The part that technical language plays in general literature
is notable in two aspects.

1. Owing to the constant movement to popularize all kinds
of learning, words from these special sources are continually
finding their way into current knowledge and usage. The
problem for the literary writer in employing them is one of
judgment : how clear and diffused knowledge of them he may
take for granted — a problem to be decided by his literary
sense. The safest procedure is exemplified in the work of
such writers as Huxley and Tyndall, who work on the basis
of everyday language, as untechnical as possible ; and where,
;is must frequently happen, such unfamiliar terms are neces-

1 Tin Journal of Geology, October-November, 1897, pp. 715, 716.

58 DICTION.

sary, they make the context repeat or define them in simpler
speech. It is a kind of translation from the erudite into the
popular.

Examples. — The following sentences, from Huxley,1 will illustrate his
care to make his language intelligible to current thought. The descriptive
and simplifying parts are here put in brackets.

" Again, think of the microscopic fungus — [a mere infinitesimal ovoid
particle, which finds space and duration enough to multiply into countless
millions in the body of a living fly]." — "The protoplasm of Algce and
Fungi becomes, under many circumstances, partially, or completely, freed
from its [woody case], and exhibits movements of its whole mass, or is
propelled by the contractility of one, or more, [hair-like prolongations of
its body, which are called] vibratile cilia." — " Under sundry circumstances
the corpuscle dies and becomes distended into a round mass, in the midst
of wThich is seen [a smaller spherical body, which existed, but was more or
less hidden, in the living corpuscle, and is called] its nucleus.''''

Many of the words used above, though technical, have become so natu-
ralized in the common vocabulary that they may be used without apology ;
e.g. fungus, ovoid, protoplasm (this word, however, is explained earlier in
the essay), contractility, corpuscle.

2. Technical language, especially such as is pretty wel
naturalized, has been much employed by such writers as
Emerson and Holmes, to give their thought a scientific color-
ing or connotation. Employed to illustrate ideas in other
departments of thought, such terms have the force of a figure
of speech, and are often very suggestive. The use of them
thus is a compliment to the increasing culture of general
readers, recognizing as it does that learned and scientific
ideas are becoming more widely known ; and in fact this
very usage is an important means of diffusing such ideas.
Of course the same literary liberties and limits are to be kept
in mind as in the foregoing case.

Examples. — In the following extracts the italicised words and turns of
expression are colored by their significance as belonging to scientific or
philosophical terminology.

1 Huxley, On the Physical Basis of Life (Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews).

CHOICE OF WORDS FOR DENOTATION. 59

" The divine circulations never rest nor linger. Nature is the incarnation
of a thought, and turns to a thought again, as ice becomes water and gas.
The world is mind precipitated, and the volatile essence is forever escaping
again into the state of free thought. Hence the virtue and pungency of
the influence on the mind of natural objects, whether inorganic or organ-
ized. Man imprisoned, man crystallized, man vegetative, speaks to man
impersonated." x

" All uttered thought, my friend, the professor, says, is of the nature of
an excretion. Its materials have been taken in, and have acted upon the
system, and been reacted on by it ; it has circulated and done its office in one
mind before it is given out for the benefit of others. It may be milk or
venom to other minds ; but, in either case, it is something which the pro-
ducer has had the use of and can part with. A man instinctively tries to
get rid of his thought in conversation or in print so soon as it is matured ;
but it is hard to get at it as it lies imbedded, a mere potentiality, the germ
of a germ, in his intellect."2

7. Foreign Words and Idioms. — As in the case of technical
words, and due likewise to the general increase of culture,
there is a constant importation of words and idioms from for-
eign languages, many of which expressions are eventually-
naturalized, but all for a period have the effect of exotics.
When the culture is lacking the employment of such terms
may be simple vulgarity and display ; this is the chief cau-
tion to be noted in the use of foreign words. For when there
is culture enough to use them tastefully the writer can ordi-
narily be trusted to look out for the claim of intelligibility,
and make sure he is understood.

Note. — The technical term for unnaturalized foreign words is Alien-
isms. They are indicated by being printed in italics ; and the adoption of
them as accepted English words is indicated by printing them in Roman.
Such words, for instance, as connoisseur and renaissance have passed their
alien stage, and are good literary English. The exact status of such words
is not easy to determine, except by writers thoroughly conversant with the
standards of literature.

1 Emhrson, Nature, Works, Vol. iii, p. 187.

2 Holmes, Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, p. 227.

60 DlCTIOtf.

How far the use of foreign words and idioms is justifiable
is to be gathered from the two ways in which they come intc
use: as deliberately chosen terms, and as a chance growth.

i. By scholarly thinkers foreign terms are sometimes chosen
for the sake of exactness ; they fit an idea better than would
any English term, and when properly set and explained have a
pointedness and distinction very useful for the occasion. Pro-
fessor Earle calls them "beacon-words," and justifies them,
though he notes that " the practice of inserting foreign words,
Latin, French, or Italian, is much less in use than it formerly
was."1 The evident effort to make the idea luminous and
precise saves such usage from the reproach of pedantry.

Example. — Consider how closely Matthew Arnold discriminates his
idea in the following passage, by employing and defining a German term : —

" But this latter belief has not the same character as the belief
which it is thus set to confirm. It is a kind of fairy-tale, which a man
tells himself, which no one, we grant, can prove impossible to turn out
true, but which no one, also, can prove certain to turn out true. It is
exactly what is expressed by the German word ' Aberglaube,' extra-belief,
belief beyond what is certain and verifiable. Our word ' superstition ' had
by its derivation this same meaning, but it has come to be used in a merely
bad sense, and to mean a childish and craven religiosity. With the Ger-
man word it is not so ; therefore Goethe can say with propriety and truth :
'■Aberglaube is the poetry of life, — der Aberglaube ist die Poesie des Lebens.*
It is so. Extra-belief, that which we hope, augur, imagine, is the poetry of
life, and has the rights of poetry." 2

It will be noted that as much care is taken to explain a foreign word
thus used as in the case of technical terms ; see p. 57, above.

2. It is as a chance growth that these foreign additions
to the language most need watching. Words picked up in
travel, or floating round in menus, journals of fashion, society
gossip, and the like, have simply the status of ephemeral or
fad words, and until naturalized in standard literature are to
be so estimated. The same may be said of foreign idioms,

1 Earle, English Prose, p. 292. See the whole section, pp. 276-297.

2 Matthew Arnold, Literature and Dogma, p. 70.

CHOICE OF WORDS FOR DENOTATION. 61

which as literal translations of foreign phrases, sound strange
and affected.

Examples. — i. The French language, as the language of polite society,
is the greatest source of such words and phrases; e.g. "A keen observer
might have seen about him some signs of ajeunesse orageuse, but his man-
ner was frank and pleasing." Every reader can recall such words as beau
mjnde, savoir faire, faux pas, entre nous, haut ton, en grande toilette, blase,
debutante, as used in writings of the day.

2. Foreign idioms, too, are constantly creeping into the language, and
are to be recognized and treated for what they are, exotics ; e.g. " That
goes without saying" (Cela va sans dire); to assist, in the sense of being
present at a ceremony; according to me (selon moi); to give on, in the
sense of open toward, as a window ; to be in evidence. Of course many of
these may be on the way to accepted usage.

Words used in travel, or in giving information about foreign
countries and customs, or citations of foreign literary expres-
sions, may sometimes be fittingly used in works obviously
intended for readers to whom such terms will be familiar and
suggestive or ought to become so. The writer thus pays a
compliment to the culture of his reader.

Example. — " You are in Rome, of course ; the sbirro said so, the
doganiere bowed it, and the postilion swore it ; but it is a Rome of modern
houses, muddy streets, dingy caffes, cigar-smokers, and French soldiers, the
manifest junior of Florence. And yet full of anachronisms, for in a little
while yon pass the column of Antoninus, find the Dogana in an ancient
temple whose furrowed pillars show through the recent plaster, and feel as
if you saw the statue of Minerva in a Paris bonnet. You are driven to a
hotel where all the barbarian languages are spoken in one wild conglom-
erate by the Commissionaire, have your dinner wholly in French, and wake
the next morning dreaming of the Tenth Legion, to see a regiment of
Chausseurs de Vincennes trotting by." x

III. PRESENT USE.

Under this head come the considerations that should influ-
ence the writer on account of the age of words : in general,
he should admit only words in good standard present usage.

1 Lowell, Leaves from my Journal in Italy and Elsewhere, Works, Vol. i, p. 190.

62 DICTION.

Language evinces its life as do all living things : by growth
on the one hand, taking in and assimilating new expressions,
as advancing thought or discovery or invention demands
them ; and on the other hand, by excretion, continually dis-
carding old locutions for which there is no further use. It is
this phenomenon of growth and excretion that distinguishes
a living language from a dead one ; the latter kind, like Latin
or Hebrew, can be added to mechanically, but it does not grow,
nor on the other hand does it diminish, being fixed and crystal-
lized in its existing literature. But because it is thus fixed it
does not take hold as does a living language ; the spirit has gone
out of it, so that at best its life can be only galvanized life.

In a living language there are always many words on the
frontiers of the too-new or the too-old whose use is a matter
of uncertainty and debate ; and has to be determined by a
general consensus of literary usage and authority, in which
not only refined speech but the relative rank of authors has
to be taken into account.

8. Words too New to be Standard. — From tne standard of
the best literature, which is the only safe one for a writer to
adopt, the many new words and phrases constantly appear-
ing, and for a while in everybody's mouth, — neologisms they
are technically called — must pass through a period of testing
and seasoning, in which it will become gradually apparent
whether they are to be a permanent addition to the vocabu-
lary or to die. His only reasonable attitude towards them is
wariness, suspicion ; not that he is not to use them at all, —
to lay down this rule would be to hamper him too much, —
but that he is not to use them unadvisedly, or merely because
they are the fashion. " Be not the first by whom the new are
tried " is Pope's maxim.

These new words come ordinarily without observation, and
from a variety of sources, of which, as including the great
predominance, may here be mentioned three : —

CHOICE OF WORDS FOR DENOTATION. 63

i. Words adopted to name new advances in science, dis-
covery, invention, and the like.1 The leading tendency now-
adays is to derive these from the Greek, and generally they are
regularly enough formed. Such new words become standard
almost at once.

Examples. — The development of some new invention or department
of science may bring into daily use a whole new section of the vocabulary ;
consider, for instance, how many new words electrical motor power alone
has originated: dynamo, volt, ampere, ohm, trolley, and hosts of others,
words unknown a few years ago. The same may be said of microscopic
science, with its microbes, bacteria, antitoxin, antiseptic ; and .of photog-
raphy, with its kinetoscope, cinematograph, etc. Along with these addi-
tions, one has to be on the lookout for grotesque formations ; as in the
sentence, " Do not speak to the motorneer" found on some electric cars.
The new words made by quack medicine dealers and advertisers, too, are
often ludicrous.

2. Words rising spontaneously in the discussion of public
and political questions, as also in the shifting phases of the
people's life ; often adopted by newspapers for the sake of
point and smartness, and at once becoming current phrases of
conversation. Some of these expressions become established
in the language, but for the most part they serve a transient
occasion. In his attitude toward them the writer has to
judge how far they are worthy of perpetuation, and whether
they answer to the dignity and permanence of literature.

Note. — So much has been said about newspaper English of late years
that the metropolitan press at present uses a fairly pure vocabulary, the

1 " English, for a quarter of a century past, has been assimilating the phraseology
of pictorial art ; for half a century, the phraseology of the great German metaphysi-
cal movement of eighty years ago ; in part also the language of mystical theology :
and none but pedants will regret a great consequent increase of its resources. For
many years to come its enterprise may well lie in the naturalization of the vocabu-
lary of science, so only it be under the eye of a sensitive scholarship — in a liberal
naturalization of the ideas of science too, for after all the chief stimulus of good
style is to possess a full, rich, complex matter to grapple with. The literary artist,
therefore, will be well aware of physical science ; science also attaining, in its turn,
its true literary ideal." — PATBR, Appreciations, p. 12.

64 DICTION.

" awful examples " of such English surviving mostly in provincial papers.
Of course, as suits their ephemeral purpose, all newspapers have a right to
a rather more dashing and audacious employment of neologisms than book
literature ; it suits the spirit and interests of the day. Such words as to
burgle or burglarize ; to suicide; to extradite ; to run (the government or an
enterprise), in the sense of conduct or direct; a steal, in the sense of a
theft; to see, in the sense of arrange with; log-rolling ; scalawag, are evi-
dently of this sub-literary vocabulary, to be recognized and employed,
therefore, for what they are.

3. Words and phrases that take a popular fancy and are
bandied about in conversation, and become slang. Every
year sees a new crop of such expressions, which for the time
are used so much that purists almost despair of the integrity
of the language. Racy and spirited they undeniably are dur-
ing their vogue, and, used masterfully, that is, with adequate
estimate of their significance, they may have the point and
beacon x quality of a figure of speech. The disadvantage of
them is, that the frequent or thoughtless use of slang impairs
the earnestness and seriousness of speech ; further, as it
speedily becomes not a vehicle of thought but a substitute
for it, standing as a meaningless counter for ideas that ought
to be discriminated and fitted with their right words, the use
of slang causes a poverty of vocabulary truly deplorable.

Examples. — The following sentence suggests how a slang expression
may on occasion enrich the thought : " Sooner or later, to use the forcible
slang of the day, ' the cover must be taken off,' and the whole matter laid
before the public conscience."2 This is really a figure of speech ; its abuse
consists in bandying it about until it is everybody's word. Such expres-
sions as " That 's right,''' for " that is true " ; " That is great," for anything
desirable or interesting or surprising ; " I draw the line " ; " Is that straight
goods ? " "I am twenty-five cents shy " will occur to every one as speci-
mens of current slang. There is a risk in recording such expressions as
current, their day goes by so soon.

9. Coinage for an Occasion. — It is to be remembered that
though language is a sacred heritage, to be cherished and

1 See above, p. 61, 1. 2 Quoted from The Outlook, Jan. 2, 1897.

CHOICE OF WORDS FOR DENOTATION. 65

guarded with all solicitude, yet after all it was made for man,
not man for language. There is, therefore, both a freedom
and a caution to be observed with regard to new coinages
and formations. Because language is a living organism, and
thought is living, there must be flexibility, adaptation, liberty ;
and so, not infrequently, a juncture of thought occurs where
the masterful writer has to 7nake his word from materials
already existing, and where such a new coinage, though serv-
ing only the present occasion, may be precisely the most
effective word possible.1

The justification or non-justification of new coinage con-
nects itself with the question how real is the occasion.

i. The one real occasion, it would seem, is the demand of
precision ; a shading or fine distinction in the thought arises,
for which there is no existing word, and some word has to be
modified or made from existing materials and terminations to
fit it.2

Examples. — The following, used by Professor Henry Drummond, is a
word that the author himself would perhaps never have occasion to use
again, nor would it ever be put into a dictionary, yet it fits its idea as no
other word could do. " No one point is assailed. It is the whole system
which when compared with the other and weighed in its balance is found
wanting. An eye which has looked at the first cannot look upon this. To
do that, and rest in the contemplation, it has first to uncentury itself." 3

The following, from W. D. Ifowells, serves to differentiate a fine shade
of meaning which the occasion requires : " But for the time being Penelope
was as nearly crazed as might be by the complications of her position, and
received her visitors with a piteous distraction which could not fail of
touching Bromfield Corey's Italianised sympatheHcisin."^

1 " New material must be found somehow. Even the Latin purist confesses so
much as this. After speaking of the riskiness of new and unauthorized expressions,
he says that nevertheless it must be risked — audcndum tamen ! " — Earle, Eng-
lish Prose, p. 218. Reference to Quintilian.

- " The coining industry in the present age of English Prose will be found to
draw its materials mainly from the vernacular, and far less than formerly from classi-
Cftl sources." — Ear LB, English Prose, p. 230. See the whole section, pp. 221-231.

:: Drummond, Natural Law in the Spiritual World, p. ^o.

4 W. D. Howells, Rise 0/ Silas La/ham} p. 490.

66 DICTION.

Bishop Brooks and R. L. Stevenson use the word busy-ness to denote
a shade of meaning that business does not. Lowell somewhere coins the
word proveable, because probable is inadequate to his purpose. The termi-
nations in -ness, -less, and -ism are, perhaps, most drawn upon to make new
words ; also the use of words in changed part of speech, as, to umpire,
a climb, z.find, is frequent.

2. Other occasions, less real, are to be watched and sub-
jected to the exactions of good taste, because the freedom of
coinage easily passes into mannerism and license, developing
a fondness for vagaries in language for the sake of smartness
or humor or pungency. Humorous formations and com-
pounds are an acknowledged license analogous to the free-
dom of conversational style ; and like any word-play they are
a rather cheap and ephemeral type of pleasantry.

Examples. — i. Of hasty or thoughtless coinage. "This, coupled with
the fast-spreading gloom, and the wild tumblefication, and the fierce crack-
ing of flapping noises, frightened her."1 The following is quoted from a
sermon : " You may seem to be drifting, oarless and helmless and anchor-
less and almost everything-else-less." This last example suggests how easy
and how risky it is for a writer of imperfect culture to make coinages for
an occasion ; they may really impair the dignity of what he intends to
convey, if he lacks the fine sense of congruity.

2. Humorous coinage. " Her spirits rose considerably on beholding
these goodly preparations, and from the nothingness of good works she
passed to the somethingness of ham and toast with great cheerfulness." —
" Amidst the general hum of mirth and conversation that ensued, there
was a little man with a puffy say-nothing-to-me-or-I Hl-contradict-you sort of
countenance, who remained very quiet."2

io. Employment of Archaic Vocabulary. — In the general
effort to secure fresh and unworn terms for literary use, there
is a strong tendency at present to work the resources of the
older and more native elements of the language, reviving
terms and especially formations that were in complete or

1 W. Clark Russell, Jack 's Courtship.

2 Dickens, Pickwick Papers, Chap. vii.

CHOICE OF WORDS FOR DENOTATION. 67

partial desuetude, and utilizing thereby both their renewed
life and their antique flavor. This tendency has both its
wholesome and its untoward sides.

i. The wholesome side shows itself in the decided prefer-
ence for the homely Saxon words, which has succeeded to the
classical tendency of a century ago ; also in the custom of
using the native powers of the language for new forms and
terminations. This is the revival of a power that during the
period of Latin influence was in abeyance.

Examples. — The most prevalent ways in which the old powers of the
language may be used are the following : —

i. The widening of the sphere of the strong verb; as in shone (which
has come in since 1700), clomb.

2. The free employment of an archaic pronominal adverb ; as, thereto,
thereunder, wherethrough, whereof; also of such words as albeit, howbeit.

3. The freedom of making the comparative in -er and the superlative in
-est in the case of long words ; as exalteder, insuffera blest.

4. The use of the Saxon negative un- in widely enlarged application ;
as, tuiwisdom, tinfaith.

Tennyson has been a great influence in this century in reviving the older
elements of the language.

2. The untoward side is simply the excess that is apt to
attend all good movements ; ill-furnished writers may take the
plea of homely Saxon and push it into a craze, an affectation.
In religious language, also, there is a tendency to employ the
archaic diction of the Bible so much as to impair genuine
fervor and run into the "holy tone" and cant. No fashion
in language, however good, can take the place of plain con-
viction and power.

EXAMPLES. — To interlard one's writing with such archaisms as hight,
yclept, swain, wight, quoth, y* (for the),jt (for that), is simply word-play
and humorous affectation; the fact that Charles Lamb could indulge his
fancy for such quaintnesses does not create a case for imitators. The sur-
vival of the Biblical coloring is noticeable in old connectives and adverbs,
such as perchance, peradventure, furthermore, verily, in sooth, haply,

68 DICTION.

words against which there is no objection except on the score of ungenu-
ineness and affectation. It may be laid down as a rule that when a man-
ner of speaking becomes a fad, a mannerism, it should be discarded.1

IV. SCHOLARLY USE.

While, as has been noted above,2 the reader must be recog-
nized and worked for as a person of average culture, it is
more than average culture that must be involved in what the
writer brings him. By the very fact of his venturing to write,
the writer sets up as a scholar, that is, as a model and authority
in his subject, and, no less, as a standard in the way of pre-
senting it. This has its application not only to invention
but to choice of words as well ; his work should evince a
sound and refined estimate of his resources of language,
individual skill of choice, and good taste.

ii. Native and Added Elements of the Vocabulary. — In the
primal duty to "be completely in touch with the English
vocabulary," one of the first things is to know not merely the
philological history, but more especially the feeling and savor
of the different ground-elements of the language. For this
general purpose these strata, or elements, may be regarded as
two : the Saxon and Romanic, comprising the everyday words
used by the Saxon pioneers and added to afterwards by the
Norman conquerors ; and the Latin, comprising the more
learned words introduced since the Revival of Letters and
the Reformation. Each of these elements has its place and
its practical uses ; the writer's duty is to employ each for what
it is worth, and be not anxious, on the score of a mere vogue
or wave of taste, to discard either.3

I The affected use of any device of speech incurs the reproach of the third fault in
art ; see above, p. 6. — Poetic archaisms will come up for discussion later ; see below,
p. 144. 2 See above, p. 52.

3 " Especially do not indulge any fantastic preference for either Latin or Anglo-
Saxon, the two great wings on which our magnificent English soars and sings ; we
can spare neither. The combination gives us an affluence of synonymes and a deli-

CHOICE OF WORDS FOR DENOTATION. 69

Note. — It will be useful here to give a passage illustrating each source ;
one made up of words predominantly Saxon, the other freely using words
of classical (Latin and Greek) origin.

i. In the first, from Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, the almost pure
Saxon character is like the natural, unstudied, conversational language
of common intercourse : —

" Now they had not gone far, but a great mist and a darkness fell upon
them all, so that they could scarce for a great while see the one the other.
Wherefore they were forced for some time to feel for one another by words,
for they walked not by sight. But any one must think that here was but
sorry going for the best of them all, but how much worse for the women
and children, who both of feet and heart were but tender. Yet so it was,
that through the encouraging words of him that led in the front, and of
him that brought them up behind, they made a pretty good shift to wag
along. The way also was here very wearisome through dirt and slabbiness.
Nor was there on all this ground so much as one inn or victualing-house,
therein to refresh the feebler sort. Here therefore was grunting and puff-
ing and sighing. While one tumbleth over a bush, another sticks fast in
the dirt ; and the children, some of them, lost their shoes in the mire.
While one cries out, I am down ; and another, Ho, where are you ? and a
third, The bushes have got such fast hold on me, I think I cannot get away
from them." *

2. In the second, from De Quincey, while the body of the passage must
still be Saxon, words of Latin and Greek origin are freely chosen for the
sake of a more accurate discrimination in thought, and these give to the
style, whether designedly or not, a certain formal and erudite flavor: —

" Every process of Nature unfolds itself through a succession of phe-
nomena. Now, if it be granted of the artist generally, that of all this mov-
ing series he can arrest as it were but so much as fills one instant of time,
and with regard to the painter in particular, that even this insulated moment
he can exhibit only under one single aspect or phasis, — it then becomes
evident that, in the selection of this single instant and of this single aspect,

cacy of discrimination such as no unmixed idiom can show." — Higginson, Atlantic
Essays, p. 8l.

" Racy Saxon monosyllables, close to us as touch and sight, he will intermix
readily with those long, savoursome, Latin words, rich in ' second intention.' In this
late day certainly, no critical process can be conducted reasonably without eclecticism."

PATER, Appreciations, p. 13.

In Earle's English Prose, Chap, i, from which this classification is adapted, is
a very valuable list of equivalent words from these different sources.
1 BUNYAN, Pilgrim's Progress, Pt. ii.

70 DICTION.

too much care cannot be taken that each shall be in the highest possible
degree pregnant in its meaning ; that is, shall yield the utmost range to the
activities of the imagination." l

What these two classes of words are good for, respectively,
is deducible from the relative places they fill in the history of
the language.

i. The Saxon or native element comprises, to begin with,
all the words and forms that determine the framework of the
language : its particles, its pronouns, its inflections, — in gen-
eral, its symbolic element.2 This element, and in almost equal
degree the immediately superinduced Romanic, come from a
pioneer age when men's thoughts were absorbed with plain
matters of the home and the soil, of labor and warfare, of
neighborhood and common traffic. It ranges, therefore, over
the vocabulary of everyday life, wherein the work of the hand
and ordinary activity and suffering are more concerned than
the subtilties of the brain.

In the Saxon element, therefore, are to be found the terms
that come closest to universal experience : words of the
family and the home and the plain relations of life. They
are, therefore, the natural terms for common intercourse, for
simple and direct emotions, for strong and hearty sentiments.
Saxon, with its short words and sturdy sounds, and by its
very limitation to the large and rudimentary emotions, is
especially the language of strength.3

2. The Latin, and in later years the Greek element, came
in as men began to study and discriminate, came in as scholar-
ship and literature claimed men's interests. By advancing and
refining thought, therefore, a want was created for new terms ;
the vocabulary must be enlarged in the direction of greater
discrimination, particularization, precision. Delicacies and

1 De Quincey, Essay on Lessing, Works (Riverside edition), Vol. ix, p. 390.

2 For the symbolic and presentive elements, see below, p. 117.

3 For the relation of such words to force, see above, p. 34.

CHOICE OF WORDS FOR DENOTATION. 71

subtilties of thought must be named as well as sentiments in
the gross and lump. To do this, and in a time when Latin
was the recognized language of learning, men had recourse
more to the Latin than to the native Saxon resources ; hence
the strong classical coloring and body given to our composite
tongue.

In the Latin element, therefore, are to be found the more
erudite and precise terms of the language, terms that deal
with abstruse ideas and with the close discriminations of
scholarship. This same scholarly quality lends dignity and
formalism to the words of Latin origin. Being also, on the
average, longer and more euphonious, these derivatives have
greater flow and volume, are more readily graduated to a
climax ; and thus from their value on the score of sound they
frequently serve well the higher requirements of poetry and
oratory.1

If the requirements of precision, fineness, and sonority
are not especially present, it is best to keep as near as pos-
sible to the Saxon basis of the language, because that, as the
speech of common people and common events, is less studied
and artificial. And further, if one's style is predominantly
Saxon, the more unusual words occasionally employed are
more distinguished and effective, having the power of beacon-
words.2

12. The False Garnish of " Fine Writing." — " Fine writing,"
what journalists call "flub," is the name given to the use of
pretentious words for trivial ideas, or the attempt by high-
sounding language to dress up something whose real impor-
tance is not great enough to bear it. Under the same head
comes also the habit of interlarding one's language with scraps
of trite quotation and outworn phrases for the sake of smart-
ness and display.

1 See below, under coloring of words and figures, p. 94, 3.

2 For beacon-words, see above, pp. 60, 64.

72 DICTION.

Example. — Dickens makes his character of Micawber a representative
of this pretentious kind of style ; the following paragraph will exemplify
his manner of saying a commonplace thing in a very big way : — ■

" ' Under the impression/ said Mr. Micawber, ' that your peregrinations
in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you might have
some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the Modern Babylon in the
direction of the City Road — in short,' said Mr. Micawber, in another burst
of confidence, 'that you might lose yourself — I shall be happy to call this
evening, and instal you in the knowledge of the nearest way.' " 1

Since Lowell, in the introduction to The Biglow Papers, Pt. ii, has
shown up this kind of style, its real character and lack of taste have been
more generally recognized, and as a consequence the newspapers and
popular literature have been less infested with it. The copious list of
words that he there gives illustrates this vice of "fine writing" very fully.

As words and phrases are continually becoming worn, and
as novelty in expression is a perennial claim, there is a con-
stant effort on the part of writers to put familiar thoughts
and facts in fresh and striking ways. Beyond this, too, there
is the unceasing quest after an ever-refining ideal of expres-
sion, the desire, as Landor puts it, for "finer bread than can
be made of wheat." These objects are natural and legiti-
mate ; but they need to be tempered and kept sane by good
taste. The requirements, or at least the susceptibilities of
the thought must furnish the justification. Governed by good
taste, the use of words a little more pretentious than the
literal subject warrants is one of the acknowledged instru-
ments of humor. Attempted by a coarse or inexperienced
hand, it is a case of fools rushing in where angels fear to
tread ; and the result, while it may happen to be felicitous,
may be, and often is, such as to make the judicious grieve.

Example of Humorous Exaggeration. — The good taste of the
following from Hawthorne, if we grant him the initial privilege of writing
about so trivial a matter at all, will not be impeached : —

" The child, staring with round eyes at this instance of liberality, wholly
unprecedented in his large experience of cent-shops, took the man of ginger-
bread, and quitted the premises. No sooner had he reached the sidewalk

1 Dickens, David Copperfield. Chap. xi.

CHOICE OF WORDS FOR DENOTATION. 73

(little cannibal that he was !) than Jim Crow's head was in his mouth. As
he had not been careful to shut the door, Hepzibah was at the pains of
closing it after him, with a pettish ejaculation or two about the troublesome-
ness of young people, and particularly of small boys. She had just placed
another representative of the renowned Jim Crow at the window, when
again the shop-bell tinkled clamorously, and again the door being thrust
open, with its characteristic jerk and jar, disclosed the same sturdy little
urchin who, precisely two minutes ago, had made his exit. The crumbs
and discoloration of the cannibal feast, as yet hardly consummated, were
exceedingly visible about his mouth."1

13. Stock Expressions and Cant. — It is not the slang of the
day alone that is ephemeral.2 Good expressions also, happy-
terms and phrases, may lose their power by becoming worn ;
as soon, in fact, as they become stock expressions they are
liable to creep into one's speech unbidden, and thus to become
not representatives of thought but substitutes for it. And
just then the use of them seems to strike the note of insin-
cerity ; the writer seems to be saying what he does not fully
mean.3 This may or may not be the case ; the outworn
phrase may just express the writer's thought ; but the chances
are that it does not, and at least the reader also should recog-
nize it as freshly and independently expressed, and should be
convinced of it by the individual manner of expression. The
name given to speech or manner of thinking which by
becoming conventional has become insincere is cant.

The matter resolves itself into a plea for self-reliance and
independence. Use no expression thoughtlessly, or merely
because it is current, but from your own recognition of its
fitness, plainly because, whether new or old, it represents
your own thought.

Illustration. — Boswell once asked Dr. Johnson, of certain poems
just published, "Is there not imagination in them, Sir?" "Why, Sir,"

1 Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables, p. 69.

2 See above, p. 64.

8 Compare the first artistic fault mentioned, p. 6.

74 DICTION.

replied the Doctor, " there is in them what was imagination, but it
more imagination in him, than sound is sound in the echo. And his die
tion too is not his own. We have long ago seen white-robed innocence anc
flower-bespangled meads"

i. The way in which phrases may become stock expressions may b(
illustrated by the old religious expressions, now going by, as : " the sacrec
desk " for pulpit ; " the vale of tears " ; " worms of the dust " ; " to hole
out faithful." Also by words and phrases much over-worked to-day ; as
"to be in touch " with something; "survival of the fittest"; "the trend'
of things or events ; " to go without saying " (a foreign idiom translated
see above, p. 61).

2. The following happily illustrates the breaking up of the trite phrase
" without let or hindrance " : " No one will question that the whole natun
of the holiest being tends to what is holy without let, struggle, or strife — i
would be impiety to doubt it." The good effect of this is easily felt.

CHAPTER IV.
WORDS AND FIGURES FOR CONNOTATION.

Hitherto we have considered the various problems in-
volved in the choice of words for what they literally say, —
literally (Jitera), that is, according to the letter. But there is
a way of employing not only words but sentences and whole
compositions, in which more is meant than meets the ear.
A writer may talk about something entirely aside from his
theme, yet in such a way that the theme is not departed from
but vivified and illustrated ; or he may use such terms and
colorings of expression as serve to infuse into the passage
some indication of how he feels, and how he would have his
reader feel, about the idea he is conveying. This is figura-
tive language ; or to use a more comprehensive and scientific
term, connotation,1 — conveying, besides the literal meaning
of the word, a secondary force or meaning.

Practical Value of Figures. — Figures of speech are popu-
larly regarded as ornaments and artifices of style. This they
are not, primarily, as is shown by the fact that any suspicion
of artifice or over-elaboration in the management of them
destroys their flavor at once. They generally add beauty to
the style, it is true ; but this is because the associated idea,
brought in for usefulness, is in itself beautiful ; besides this,
there is an intrinsic beauty in the art of crowding expression
with manifold suggestion and enlisting imagination and emo-
tion in it. Under all this, however, is the sturdy basis of

1 Further definition of denotation and connotation need not be dwelt on here ; see
above, pp.9, 29,34,46.

76 DICTION.

practical use ; figures enable us to say more in a given space,
and to say it with more life and vigor.1

The test of a figure's practical value is its naturalness : it
should rise so spontaneously out of the idea or situation as
to go without question or sense of unfitness. If the figure
connotes an illustrative thought, it must be reasonable for
the writer to think in that way ; else the figure is far-fetched
or fantastic or superfine. If the figure connotes emotion, it
must be natural for the writer to have that mood or feeling,
else the figure will be violent or maudlin or unreal. There is
a fine sympathy of thought with illustrative thought, and of
expression with emotion, which it is one object of this chap-
ter to indicate ; it will not do for the writer to let these run
away with him ; he must hold them well in hand and make
them do his skilfully calculated work. To say this is merely
to say that the greater the apparent naturalness the truer the
actual art.

Summary of Connotation. — The natural division of the sub-
ject has already been repeatedly recognized. A figure may
be employed either for the sake of enriching the thought of
the idea, that is, for its illustrative value ; or for the sake of
creating in the reader a certain mood or feeling about the
idea, that is, for its emotional value. In either case the figu-
rative force may be overt, that is, revealing its object openly ;
or implicit, that is, imparting its power unobtrusively through
the tone and coloring of words and style.

I. CONNOTATION OF IDEA.

The principle underlying all the figures of this class is
the principle of association. Along with the thought to be

1 " Simile and figure may be regarded as a natural short-hand, which substitutes
well-known things for the unknown qualities of whatever has to be described, and
which therefore gives the general effect of the things to be described without neces-
sitating the task of minute description/' — George Brimley, Essays, p. 43.

WORDS AND FIGURES FOR CONNOTATION. 77

enforced or the object to be described the reader is made to
think of something else : it may be something more familiar,
better known, in which case the object gains in clearness ; or
something less abstract, more impressive to the senses, in
which case the object gains in concrete reality. Both these
qualities are usually present, the proportion varying some-
what between different figures, especially simile and meta-
phor, but blending always into a general effect of enhanced
life and vigor.1

Overt Figures of Association. — In these the fact of conno-
tation is presented most typically : the associated object
being plainly evident, either as definitely named or as so
clearly assumed that the reader thinks without effort in its
sphere of ideas.

Simile and Analogy. — When the thing to be illustrated and
the associated object are named together, with a particle or
phrase of comparison (like, similar to, resembling, comparable
to, etc.) expressed or implied, and when these compared
objects are of different classes, the figure thus arising is
called Simile, — which word' is simply the neuter singular
adjective similis, "like." A simile is an expressed likeness.

When the likeness is not between simple objects but between
relations of objects, the more complex figure thus arising is
called Analogy, from the Greek words dvd and \6yos, an asso-
ciated or comparing word. If we were to represent the two
figures algebraically, simile would be expressed by a ratio
;, and analogy by a proportion (a:b::c:d). The
principle of the two, however, is the same ; and often they
interact so naturally that it serves no practical purpose to
liscriminate them.

1 lor connotation as a general instrument of Force, see above, p. 34.

78 DICTION.

Examples. — i. Of Simile. "He shall be- like a tree planted by the
rivers of water." 1 — "Of the two kinds of composition into which history has
been thus divided, the one may be compared to a map, the other to a painted
landscape."2 — "His (Lord Bacon's) understanding resembled the tent
which the fairy Paribanou gave to Prince Ahmed. Fold it ; and it seemed
a toy for the hand of a lady. Spread it ; and the armies of powerful Sultans
might repose beneath its shade." 3

2. Of Analogy. " She told me her story once ; it was as if a grain of
corn that had been ground and bolted had tried to individualize itself by a
special narrative."4 Here the likeness is between relations : her story was
to other stories as the particles of one grain of corn are to the particles of
another. — " Many were the wit-combats betwixt him (Shakespeare) and
Ben Jonson ; which two I behold like a Spanish great galleon and an Eng-
lish man-of-war : master Jonson (like the former) was built far higher in
learning ; solid, but slow, in his performances. Shakespeare, with the
English man-of-war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with
all tides, tack about, and take advantage of all winds, by the quickness of
his wit and invention." 5 Here the analogy might be thus expressed :

Jonson : wit-combats : : Spanish galleon : stately sailing.

Shakespeare : wit-combats : : English man-of-war : manoeuvring.

Analogy is generally a more formal and elaborated figure than simile,
and its illustrative purpose is more avowed.

Two or three remarks are necessary in further explication
of this figure.

i. There are comparisons which are not similes, and are
not figurative. They are used as freely and naturally, per
haps, as the figure, the noting of similarities being one oj
the constant impulses of thought. To be a simile, the com
parison, as intimated above, must be between objects of dif-
ferent classes ; so different that there is a shock of surprise
and interest that things in general so unlike should have one
point or relation so similar.

Example. — " It is in vain that he spurs his discouraged spirit ; in vain
that he chooses out points of view, and stands there, looking with all

1 Psalm i. 3. 2 Macaulay, Essay on Hollands Constitutional History

3 lb., Essay on Lord Bacon. 4 Holmes, Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, p. 8<)
5 Fuller, Worthies of England, Vol. iii, p. 284.

WORDS AND FIGURES FOR CONNOTATION. 79

his eyes, and waiting for some return of the pleasure that he remembers
in other days, as the sick folk may have awaited the coming of the
angel at the pool of Bethesda." 1 Here the comparison, being merely
between a man waiting in one place and men waiting in another, is not
a simile.

2. The associated object, being generally more familiar or
more concrete than the thing illustrated, has the effect of
reducing the latter, as it were, to simpler terms. A peculiar
imaginative effect, more easily felt than defined, is produced
when the associated object is less palpable or concrete than
the thing illustrated.

Example. — " This evening I saw the first glowworm of the season in
the turf beside the little winding road which descends from Lancy towards
the town. It was crawling furtively under the grass, like a timid thought
or a dawning talent." 2 This may be regarded as a kind of inverted simile.

3. The great office of simile and analogy being to picture
and illustrate, these figures are more promotive of clearness
and definiteness than of passion and strength. Hence they
are more naturally used in the less impassioned kinds of
discourse : in imaginative prose, and in descriptive rather
than dramatic poetry. When men are under strong emotion
they are not likely to indulge in comparisons ; they strike at
once for the more trenchant metaphor.

Illustration. — Shakespeare, in his King Richard II, portrays a
character that is too unmoved and essentially too shallow for the hard
circumstances in which he is placed, by making him amuse himself with
similes and poetic fancies : —

u I have been studying how I may compare
This prison where I live unto the world :
And for because the world is populous,
And here is not a creature but myself,
I cannot do it ; yet I '11 hammer it out." 3

1 Stevenson, Ordered South, Works, Vol. xiii, p. $3.

2 AmiePs Journal, Vol. i, p. 58.

3 Shakespeare, King Richard II, Act v, Scene 5, I.

80 DICTION.

He emphasizes the characterization further by making the king, at
when his emotions should be impassioned, spin out his figures to the point
of the ludicrous : —

" For now hath time made me his numbering clock :
My thoughts are minutes ; and with sighs they jar
Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch,
Whereto my finger, like a dial's point,
Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears.
Now sir, the sound that tells what hour it is
Are clamorous groans, which strike upon my heart,
Which is the bell." I

These passages show Shakespeare's keen sense not only of character but
of the proper and timely use of figure ; they are a study in rhetoric.

Metaphor. — A closer association of objects than by simile
is made when, instead of comparing one thing with another,
we identify the two, by taking the name or assuming the attri-
butes of the one for the other. This figure is -named Meta-
phor, a term derived from the Greek words //.era and <f>epw, " to
carry over," "transfer," indicating, therefore, exactly what
the figure is, a transfer of meanings.

Examples. — i. The associated object directly named. " The man who
cannot wonder, who does not habitually wonder (and worship), were he Presi-
dent of innumerable Royal Societies, and carried the whole Mecanique
Celeste and Hegel's Philosophy, and the epitome of all Laboratories and
Observatories with their results, in his single head, — is but a Pair of Specta-
cles behind which there is no Eye."2 " He [Shakespeare] had now reached
the very summits of his genius, and if we oblige ourselves to express an opin-
ion as to the supreme moment in his career, the year 1605 presently offers
us an approximate date. We stand on the colossal peak of King Lear,
with Othello on our right hand and Macbeth on our left, the sublime
masses of Elizabethan mountain country rolling on every side of us, yet
plainly dominated by the extraordinary central cluster of aiguilles on which
we have planted ourselves. This triple summit of the later tragedies of
Shakespeare forms the Mount Everest of the poetry of the world." 8

1 Shakespeare, King Richard II, Act v, Scene 5, 50.

2 Carlyle, Sartor Resarlus, Chap. x.

3 Gosse, Modern English Literature, p. 103. The word aiguilles is a foreign
term treated as if naturalized ; compare above, p. 59, note. For the allusive epithet
Mount Everest, see below, p. 90, 1 .

WORDS AND FIGURES FOR CONNOTATION. 81

2. The associated object taken for granted, its attributes being assumed.
— A man assumes characteristics of a cat : " But I beg of you, my dear
Fields, don't let my paternal zeal prevent you from giving your views
always and freely. If I seem to be stirred up at first, on being stroked
the wrong way, you may be sure it is only a temporary electrical snapping,
I shall soon be purring again." x In the following the simple assumption
that dramatic characters are real, not manufactured, persons, has a meta-
phorical effect : " He has no style at all : he simply throws his characters
at one another's heads, and leaves them to fight it out as they will."2

The following remarks are necessary in further explication
of metaphor.

i. Many, probably most, of the words and phrases that
take the popular fancy and are adopted into the current
vocabulary involve metaphor. But as soon as they become
familiar expressions the metaphorical feeling begins to fade,
and in course of time they produce only the effect of a literal
term. The language is full of such outworn metaphors ;
" fossil poetry " it has been called on this account ; and the
way in which a writer or speaker uses these furnishes often
a delicate test whether his conception of language is keen or
dull.

Examples. — Such expressions as " to catch on," " to get a cinch," " to
draw the line," " to be on the fence," originally slang, are simply meta-
phors, destined either to become idioms and take their place in the
standard vocabulary, or to die out; see above, p. 64.

How a metaphor may fade is seen in the word circumstances (things
standing around), whose metaphorical sense is now so little recognized
that we say " under these circumstances " oftener, perhaps, than " in
these circumstances." The phrase " to drop in " is well established for
a casual call ; how it has become faded, as a metaphor, was illustrated
in a person's invitation to another " to drop up " and see him.

2. This tendency of metaphor to fade, or to be too vaguely
apprehended, shows itself in the mixture of metaphors, the

1 Life and Letters of Bayard Taylor, Vol. ii, p. 508.

2 Gosse, Modern English Literature, p. 192.

82 DICTION.

fault most to be guarded against in the use of the figure. It
arises from giving too little attention to the successive images
that crowd upon the brain ; they are, in fact, not images at
all, that is, not conceived by the imagination, but uncon-
sidered stock forms of expression ; and the fault is to be
avoided by surrendering one's thoughts to the picture sug-
gested until it becomes real and works itself out consistently.
This is analogous to the avoidance of cant, and is referable
to the same cause.1

Examples. — " The very recognition of these or any of them by the
jurisprudence of a nation is a mortal wound to the very keystone upon
which the whole arch of morality reposes." 2 Here the words " mortal
wound " treat the object spoken of as a person ; but as soon as the word
" keystone " is reached this suggestion is forgotten, and the image of an
arch is in mind. The incongruity would not have risen, probably, had
the figure been thought out originally ; but the fact is, both expressions,
" mortal wound " and " keystone," have been so frequently in use that
their figurative edge has become dulled.

Sometimes figures become mixed not by carelessness but by a kind of
impetuosity of thought, an impulse to crowd the assertion too full for one
image to suffice for it ; such is Shakespeare's well-known line, " to take
arms against a sea of troubles " ; such also Ruskin's expression, " allows
himself to be swept away by the trampling torrent." These are cases
where the master asserts his authority over language, and are to be left to
the masters, who are aware of their powers and liberties.

3. Akin to mixture of metaphors is the injudicious or
thoughtless mixture of metaphor and literal statement, which
either produces the effect of bathos 3 or else fills the whole
passage with confusion.

Examples. — The following produces the effect of a drop into bathos :
" When thus, as I may say, before the use of the loadstone, or knowledge
of the compass, I was sailing in a vast ocean, without other help than the
pole-star (metaphor) of the ancients, and the rules of the French stage
(literal) among the moderns." 4

1 See above, p. 73. 2 Hodgson, Errors in the Use of English, p. 227.

8 For Bathos, see below, p. 294. 4 Dryden, Preface to Dramatic Writing.

WORDS AND FIGURES FOR CONNOTATION. 83

In the following it is impossible without other information to tell where
history ends and metaphor begins : " The object of the conspirators was
to put between thirty and forty barrels of gunpowder into the mine, and to
blow the King and the Prince of Wales, the lords and the bishops to atoms.
They shortly found a cellar which answered fheir purpose better. Here
they banked up their barrels under a suspicious quantity of coal and other
fuel. [Hitherto historic, from this point the account is metaphorical.]
When the train was laid, it led, however, to themselves, and when the
explosion came, it was under their own feet. They were scattered to the
four winds." x

4. Sometimes simile and metaphor are united in one
expression, the thought being introduced by the one and
carried on by the other. By this combination of figures the
illustrative quality of simile and the vigorous directness of
metaphor are both secured with a distinctly pleasing effect.

Example. — The following is from a conversation between the sisters
Irene and Penelope : —

" ' Oh, how can you treat me so ! ' moaned the sufferer. ■ What do you
mean, Pen ? '

" ' I guess I 'd better not tell you,' said Penelope, watching her like a
cat playing with a mouse. ' If you 're not coming to tea, it would just
excite you for nothing.'

" The mouse moaned and writhed upon the bed.

" ' Oh, I would n't treat you so ! '

" The cat seated herself across the room, and asked quietly —

" ' Well, what could you do if it was Mr. Corey ? You could n't come to
tea, you say. But he '11 excuse you. I 've told him you had a headache.
Why, of course you can't come ! It wTould be too barefaced. But you
need n't be troubled, Irene ; I '11 do my best to make the time pass pleas-
antly for him.' Here the cat gave a low titter, and the mouse girded itself
up with a momentary courage and self-respect.

" ' I should think you would be ashamed to come here and tease me
so.'" 2

5. Metaphor is both bolder and more condensed than
simile, and by virtue of both these qualities it is naturally

1 From an article in The English Illustrated Magazine.

2 HOWELLS, The Rise of Silas Lapham, p. 118.

84 DICTION.

better adapted to produce a forcible and vivid impression.
Hence it is more used in impassioned discourse, and in dra-
matic poetry, which is the poetry of passion as distinguished
from the poetry of fancy.

Note. — This distinction between simile and metaphor is already brought
out in the Illustration, p. 79, 3. There not only the form of the figure but
the image itself is ill adapted to a moment of supreme passion ; it is too
leisurely and descriptive.

Personification. — This figure endows inanimate things, or
abstract ideas, with attributes of life and personality. It is
closely related to the preceding figure, being indeed, in some
of its uses, merely personal metaphor. The English language
is well adapted to personification, because it is not cumbered,
like Latin, Greek, and German, with the incongruities of
grammatical gender ; so when personality is attributed to
something inanimate, the fact is significant and striking.

Examples. — " Do we look for Truth ? she is not the inhabitant of
cities, nor delights in clamor; she steals upon the calm and meditative
as Diana upon Endymion, indulgent in her chastity, encouraging a modest,
and requiting a faithful, love."1 — "And then came autumn, with his
immense burden of apples, dropping them continually from his overladen
shoulders as he trudged along." 2

" Yet Hope had never lost her youth ;

She did but look through dimmer eyes ;
Or Love but play'd with gracious lies,
Because he felt so fix'd in truth." 3

i. The use of personification inheres in the fact that we
can follow the traits and acts of a person better than the
attributes of a thing or an abstraction ; as soon as the per-
sonality is suggested we are conscious of a kind of communion
with it, a sympathy with its life and character.

1 Landor, Imaginary Conversations, Vol. i, p. 242 (Efiicurus, Leontion, and
Ternissa).

2 Hawthorne, Mosses from an Old Manse, p. 21.
8 Tennyson, In Memoriam, cxxv.

WORDS AND FIGURES FOR CONNOTATION. 85

Example. — In the following, from Stevenson, consider how the vivid-
ness is increased as soon as personality is attributed to the river : " The
river was swollen with the long rains. From Vadencourt all the way to
Origny it ran with ever-quickening speed, taking fresh heart at each mile,
and racing as though it already smelt the sea." x

2. The abuse, or rather the cheapening of personification,
consists in annulling its proper effect by employing it where
no end of concreteness or vividness really calls for it. Unless
something real is gained by it the effect of it is crude or
artificial.

» Note. — In the following sentence there is really no occasion for the
personal pronoun, nor is anything gained by regarding the world as a
person : " It is to scholarly men that the world owes her progress in civili-
zation and refinement." There is a strong tendency with young writers
to make a feminine of every familiar abstraction: the world, our country,
our college or fraternity, science, and the like ; a tendency to be watched
and subjected to the claims of practical use. Another cheap and rather
empty device is to treat mental and moral traits as persons ; Lowell calls
it " that alphabetic personification which enlivens all such words as Hunger,
Solitude, Freedom, by the easy magic of an initial capital."

Allegory. — In this figure an abstract truth or lesson is
conceived under the form of a fundamental metaphor, and
followed out into detail, generally as a narrative, sometimes
as an extended description. Thus, in the most celebrated of
allegories, Bunyan's Pilgrim 's Progress, the trials and experi-
ences of the Christian life are set forth in the story of a
pilgrimage from the " City of Destruction " to the " Celestial
City."

i. Allegory, as a means of conveying abstract truth, has a
twofold utility. First, it has the concreteness of its under-
lying metaphor ; we apprehend the truth as an object of
sense or a thing of life, and follow its fortunes accordingly.
Secondly, instead of having to follow the logical plan of an

1 Stevknson, Aii Inland Voyage, p. 59 (Thistle edition).

86 DICTION.

essay, we trace the unfolding of a plot, a story, which is the
easiest and most engaging of literary forms.

Example. — The following, being the opening paragraph of Bunyan's
Pilgrim 's Progress, will illustrate something of the fundamental machinery
of that story : —

" As I walk'd through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain
place where was a Den, and I laid me down in that place to sleep ; and as I
slept, I dreamed a Dream. I dreamed, and behold I saw a Man cloathed with
Rags, standing in a certain place, with his face from his own house, a Book
in his hand, and a great Burden upon his back. I looked, and saw him
open the Book, and read therein ; and as he read, he wept and trembled ;
and not being able longer to contain, he brake out with a lamentable cry,
saying What shall I do ? "

2. Allegory is so predominantly associated, in ordinary
minds, with its great monuments, like the Pilgrim's Progress
and Spenser's Faerie Queene, and with moral virtues and les-
sons, that it is quite generally thought to be obsolete, or
something to be shunned, like a sermon. The fact is, how-
ever, it is a very vital and by no means infrequent figure,
though more in the way of allegoric touches, and used with
the reticence and delicacy that obtains in the more modern
art of literature. It is often a valuable means of exposition,
being closely allied to analogy.1

Example. — The following paragraph illustrates Dean Swift's peculiar
ways, often bullying and insolent, of obtaining his ends in politics and his
disappointment at not obtaining a bishopric for himself : " Could there be
a greater candor ? It is an outlaw who says, ' These are my brains ; with
these I '11 win titles and compete with fortune. These are my bullets ;
these I '11 turn into gold ; ' and he hears the sound of coaches and six,
takes the road like Macheath, and makes society stand and deliver. They
are all on their knees before him. Down go my lord bishop's apron, and
his Grace's blue ribbon, and my lady's brocade petticoat in the mud. He
eases the one of a living, the other of a patent place, the third of a little
snug post about the Court, and gives them over to followers of his own.
The great prize has not come yet. The coach with the mitre and crosier
in it, which he intends to have for his share has been delayed on the way

1 For Analogy, see above, p. 77 ; in Exposition, see below, p. 567.

WORDS AND FIGURES FOR CONNOTATION. 87

from St. James's ; and he waits and waits until nightfall, when his runners
come and tell him that the coach has taken a different road, and escaped
him. So he fires his pistols into the air with a curse, and rides away into
his own country." 1

Various modifications of the figure Allegory, such as Para-
ble, Fable, Apologue, belong rather to invention than to
style, and being well enough defined in any dictionary, need
not be further discriminated here.

II.

Implicatory Words and Coloring. — The connotation of a sup-
porting or illustrative idea, which is the enriching source of
all the figures of this class, is generally made more gracefully
and with less suggestion of labor and artifice, by some means
of implication, putting the reader as it were in the atmosphere
and attitude of the connoted idea without making it obvious
how he got there. The effect of this is not only illustrative ;
it gives also a picturesque tone and coloring to the whole
passage, making it a verbal cloth of gold.

Trope. — This word, from the Greek rpe^w, " to turn," which
is popularly used as nearly synonymous with figures of speech,
is here adopted to denote a word so turned from its literal
setting and suggestiveness as to flash a figurative implication
in one swift term. As to principle, it is not new ; it involves
metaphor, simile, or personification, but it does not work
them out, it merely suggests and leaves them. Trope is the
commonest of figurative expedients; every style that has
vigor or imagination is full of it. From the beginning it has
so truly been the spontaneous means of imparting lightness
and lucidity to abstract ideas that nearly the whole vocabu-
lary of moral and intellectual terms is in its origin tropical.2

HACKERAY, English Humorists, Lecture on Swift.
2 " We should often be at a loss how to describe a notion, were we not at liberty
to employ in a metaphorical sense the name of anything sufficiently resembling it.

88 DICTION.

Examples. — i. An involved Simile. "The tanned complexion, that
amorphous crag-like face," etc.1 — "Those graceful fan-like jets of silver
upon the rocks.".2 — "The light sparkled golden in the dancing poplar
leaves." 3 Many of the adjectives in -like, -ly, -en, involve an original
simile.

2. Involved Metaphor. " It [a university] is the place where the cate-
chist makes good his ground as he goes, treading in the truth day by day
into the ready memory, and wedging and tightening it into the expanding
reason. It is a place which wins the admiration of the young by its
celebrity, kindles the affections of the middle-aged by its beauty, and rivets
the fidelity of the old by its associations." 4 — In the following a single word
suffices to associate the object named with the sun, whose spots are invis-
ible from the excess of light : " There are poems which we should be
inclined to designate as faultless, or as disfigured only by blemishes which
pass unnoticed in the general blaze of excellence." 5

3. Involved Personification.6 " But in the apparent height of their
power and prosperity the progress of decay had already begun, and once
begun it was rapid. Floods, sieges, and sacks all contributed to it, but it
was chiefly due to the course of physical change, conspiring with the
increase in the burthen of vessels."

Synecdoche and Metonymy. — These, from their unobtrusive-
ness and spontaneity, may be classed with the implicatory
figures. Their connotation is very close, lying, in fact, within
the radius of the thing illustrated, with its natural relations
and attributes. The two figures, being essentially alike in
principle, are here described together.

1. Synecdoche lets some striking part of an object stand
for the whole, or, less frequently, the whole for a part. It is

There would be no expression for the sweetness of a melody, or the brilliance of an
harangue, unless it were furnished by the taste of honey and the brightness of a torch."
— Jevons, Principles of Science. See also Earle, English Prose, p. 241.

1 Correspondence of Carlyle and Emerson, Vol. i, p. 247.

2 Newman, Historical Sketches, Vol. iii, p. 22.

3 Stevenson, An Inland Voyage (Thistle edition), p. 60.

4 Newman, ut supra, p. 16.

6 Macau lay, Essay on Hallant's Constitutional History.

6 " One of the richer sources of Figure is the attribution of human qualities to
objects which are naturally devoid of them. Sometimes it hardly amounts to what
we should call Personification, it is merely a tinge of anthropomorphism." — Earli
English Prose, p. 246. The example is quoted by him.

WORDS AND FIGURES FOR CONNOTATION. 89

essentially synecdoche, too, and gives a peculiar coloring to
an assertion, when a verb that denotes a more partial or
limited action is used for the larger or more comprehensive
action natural to the object.

Examples. — i. Of Name-Synecdoche. It will be noted that the part
named in the following is just the part most useful for setting forth the
idea or picture : —

" There moved the multitude, a thousand heads." 1

" The gilded parapets were crown'd
With faces, and the great tower fill'd with eyes
Up to the summit, and the trumpets blew." 2

2. Of Verb-Synecdoche. " Coleridge sat on the brow of Highgate Hill,
in those years, looking down on London and its smoke-tumult, like a sage
escaped from the inanity of life's battle."3 The literal fact is that he
resided at Highgate. — " Many a more fruitful coast or isle is washed by the
blue ^Egean, many a spot is there more beautiful or sublime to see, many a
territory more ample ; but there was one charm in Attica, which in the same
perfection was nowhere else." 4 Washing is an insignificant act for a sea.

2. Metonymy (fierd and owp, " change of name ") names
not the object but some aspect or accompaniment of it so
closely related in idea as to be naturally interchangeable with it.

Examples. — " He was a capable man, with a good chance in life ; but
he had drunk up two thriving businesses like a bottle of sherry, and involved
his sons along with him in ruin."5 — " There are places that still smell of
the plough in memory's nostrils."6

" The bright death quiver'd at the victim's throat ;
Touch'd ; and I knew no more." 7

It will be noted in the above examples that while in synecdoche the con-
noted part is more restricted than the original, in metonymy it is more

1 Tennyson, The Princess, Prologue, 1. 57.

2 lb., Pelleas and Ettarre, 1. 158.

8 Carlyle, Life of John Sterling, p. 52.

4 Newman, Historical Sketches, Vol. iii, p. 20.

6 Stevenson, The Amateur Emigrant (Thistle edition), p. 33.

6 lb., Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh (Thistle edition), p. 326.

7 Tennyson, A Dream of Fair Women, st. 29.

90 DICTION.

abstract, it enlarges the scope of the idea by identifying it with some gen-
eral significance or result of it. The above-quoted examples are purposely
chosen for their comparative boldness ; how common and natural the
figure may be, however, may be seen from this metonymy from Gibbon :
" The frontiers of that extensive monarchy were guarded by ancient
renoxvn and disciplined valor." 1

Concerning both these figures it is to be remarked that
their principle is to choose merely the serviceable part of the
idea, whether it is the actual part that is most intimately
concerned in the picture or the relation that deepens its sig-
nificance, and, employing merely this, to let the rest go.
Thus they reduce an idea to its focus and centre, and make
that do the work.

Allusion. — An allusion (ad and ludo, literally a " play upon ")
is an indirect reference to or suggestion of something that
the reader may be trusted to understand, some personage,
incident, expression, or custom. The employment of allusion
connotes all that the reader knows of the thing alluded to,
making it throw light on the idea in hand. Often a whole
region of implication is thus opened.

The following are some of the most striking uses of
allusion.

i. The name of some noted personage of history or litera-
ture is sometimes used to connote the traits with which the
personage is identified ; as when a person is called a Solomon,
a Judas, a Napoleon, a Tartuffe, a Pecksniff.

Examples. — The familiar line "A Daniel come to judgment," from
The Merchant of Venice, will at once suggest itself to the student.

" He [Donne] was the blind Samson in the Elizabethan gate, strong
enough to pull the beautiful temple of Spenserian fancy about the ears of
the worshippers, but powerless to offer them a substitute."2 The word
Samson, by its allusive suggestion, connotes strength of a blind brute kind
yet not without sublimity and greatness.

1 Gibbon, Decline and Fall, introductory paragraph.

2 Gosse, Modem English Literature, p. 123.

WORDS AND FIGURES FOR CONNOTATION. 91

2. Some characteristic deed or achievement of a man is
often put for his name, connoting and applying to the situa-
tion the achievement's peculiar significance.

Examples. — " The conqueror of Austerlitz might be expected to hold
different language from the prisoner of St. Helena." Here the two epithets
for one person connote the antithesis of victory and defeat.

" The book, to be plain, is a long gibe at theology, and it is not surpris-
ing that no bishopric could ever be given to the inventor of the Brown
Loaf and the Universal Pickle." l Here the names of Swift's inventions
give by implication the reason why he failed of church preferment.

3. Some incident of history, mythology, or fiction may be
so mentioned as to furnish a kind of metaphorical or allegori-
cal mould for the thought in hand. The prosperity of such
an allusion depends, of course, on the reader's knowledge of
the event referred to ; it is a compliment to his reading, tak-
ing him as it were into the writer's confidence, and giving
him a connotation denied to his less-read neighbor.

Examples. — " It is due neither to the historical interest of the subject,
nor even to the genius of the writer, that this purely scientific work, which
does not recoil upon occasion from the driest exegetical discussions,
should have fascinated and impressed even the critics of the boulevard,
and given them a momentary glimpse of the grave and vital problems
involved : it is due to the touch of the magic wand with which the histo-
rian has struck the old stony text and caused the entire modern soul to
gush forth."2 Here the allusion is to Moses striking the rock in the
wilderness, Numbers xx. 10, II.

" The fifth decade of the century was a period of singular revival in
every branch of moral and intellectual life. Although the dew fell all over
the rest of the threshing-floor, the fleece of literature was not unmoistened
by it." 8 Here the allusion is to the story of Gideon, Judges vi. 36-40.

The following allusion combines the kinds described in paragraphs 2
and 3 : " ' Sign-post criticism ' is scoffed at by many who do not need it ;
but compasses are constantly required, in spite of the world's Giottos."4

1 Gosse, Modern English Literature, p. 222.

2 Essays 0/ James Darmesteter, p. 23.

8 Gossi:, Modern English Literature, p. 352.
* McLaughlin, Literary Criticism, p. xvi.

92 DICTION.

Here the allusion is to the story of Giotto's marvelous skill in drawing a
perfect circle with free hand.

4. Frequently the allusion is more delicate still, being
merely a play on a quoted expression from literature, amount-
ing in spirit sometimes to parody, and serving as a sly vehicle
of humor. A caution is needed against the temptation to
make such use of Scripture ; it may secure audacity and
pointedness at the expense of reverence and good taste.

Examples. — " Give him the wages of going on and being an English-
man, that is all he asks ; and in the meantime, while you continue to
associate, he would rather not be reminded of your baser origin." 1 Here
use is made of Tennyson's line in the poem Wages : " Give her the
wages of going on, and still to be." — "But on other occasions, taking no
thought what he should put on, he [Newman] clothed his speech in what
he supposed would best please or most directly edify his immediate
audience."2 Here use is made of the Scripture expression "Take no
thought for the morrow, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, or what
ye shall put on."

The following examples, though literal quotations, may fairly be called
parody, on account of the entire change of application. " One especial
gift Mr. Gladstone very soon showed the House — his wronderf ul skill in
the arrangement of figures. He came of a great commercial family, and
he might be said to have been cradled in finance. To paraphrase (sic)
Pope's famous line, he lisped in numbers, for the numbers came."3 —
" These gentlemen seemed to have imagined that they were about visiting
some backwoods wilderness, some savage tract of country, ' remote, un-
friended, melancholy, slow. ' " 4

Of course parody involving change of words as well as spirit may also
be used as an instrument of allusion ; e.g. " Ponder thereon, ye small
antiquaries who make barn-door-fowi flights of learning in ' Notes and
Queries'!"5 Parody of Tennyson's "Short swallow-flights of song."

1 Stevenson, Memories and Portraits, p. 13.

2 Gosse, Modern English Literature, p. 351. Here, as the use is a turn of
expression only, and does not involve a change in the spirit, there is no transgression
of proper reverence.

8 Justin McCarthy, Article in The Outlook, Jan. 2, 1897.

4 Stories by American Authors, Vol. v, p. 144.

5 Holmes, Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, p. 75.

WORDS AND FIGURES FOR CONNOTATION. 93

Coloring due to Association. — The inner life and power of
words cannot all be obtained from their dictionary meanings
and shadings, nor from their accommodated use as tropes ;
there still remains a coloring, a flavor due to the company
they are in, or perhaps to the association in which they natu-
rally belong, a latent figurative suggestiveness which yields
its vitality to the passage without apparent design or effort.

The following are main aspects of this subtle coloring.

i. The use of what are called pregnant words, words not
reducible as tropes to any definite image, yet acquiring from
their association a more than literal color, a tinge of senti-
ment or vigor which imbues the life of the passage with a
new interest.

Examples. — "His [Hobbes's] views are embodied in his Leviathan, a
work of formidable extent, not now often referred to except by students,
but attractive still from the resolute simplicity of the writer's style."1

" But when he spake, and cheer'd his Table Round
With large, divine, and comfortable words,
Beyond my tongue to tell thee — I beheld
From eye to eye thro' all their Order flash
A momentary likeness of the King." 2

Here the words " resolute " and " large " are the most striking and potent
words of their sentences, yet the reason of this defies analysis ; there is in
them a kind of overtone, a reverberation, due to their association by a
skilled hand.

2. Closely akin to this is the transplanting of a word to
another part of the vocabulary than that in which it is ordi-
narily used, as from the scientific or technical to the common,
and vice versa. Thus it imparts the coloring of its origin to
the thought in hand ; it is like a man of learning — or the
opposite — giving his conception of an object out of his line.

Examples. — This use of words to impart a scientific coloring has
already been discussed under Technical Terms and Coloring ; see above,

1 Gosse, Modern English Literature, p. 154.

2 Tennyson, The Coming of Arthur, 11. 266-270.

94 DICTION.

p. 56. — Also in the example given on p. 88 : " that amorphous crag-like
face," where the word is adopted from the vocabulary of geology. — In the
following a peculiar effect is produced by the use of a colloquial word :
11 The bother with Mr. Emerson is that, though he writes in prose, he is
essentially a poet." l Here the tropical suggestiveness is strong, but some-
thing is due also to the sudden irruption of the more homely vocabulary.

3. A strong coloring may also be imparted by associating
the sound of a word or turn of expression with the descriptive
feeling of the thought ; as when volume of sound is employed
to portray volume of sense, or a limpid phraseology conforms
itself to a suggestion of eloquence or beauty. The Latin
element of the vocabulary, from the greater average length
and sonorousness of its words, is well adapted to such effects.

Examples. — In the following, from Macaulay, the sonorous Latin
words are chosen for their descriptive volume : " The whole book, and
every component part of it, is on a gigantic scale. . . . We cannot sum up
the merits of the stupendous mass of paper which lies before us better than
by saying that it consists of about two thousand closely printed quarto
pages, that it occupies fifteen hundred inches cubic measure, and that it
weighs sixty pounds avoirdupois."2 — In the following the whimsically
coined Latin word corresponds to the big scale on which the writer would
have us judge his subject : " The ventripotent mulatto, the great eater, worker,
earner and waster, the man of much and witty laughter, the man of the
great heart and alas! of the doubtful honesty, is a figure not yet clearly
set before the world ; he still awaits a sober and yet genial portrait ; but
with whatever art that may be touched, and whatever indulgence, it will not
be the portrait of a precisian."3 For the relative merits of Saxon and
Latin words, see above, p. 70. The subject, in one aspect, will come
up again later, under the head of The Key of Words ; see below, p. 104.

II. CONNOTATION OF EMOTION.

Some uses of word and figure are not natural to cold blood
but rise spontaneously out of some excited mood or emotion

1 Lowell, Prose Works, Vol. i, p. 351. Quoted by Earle, English Prose, p. 298.

2 Macaulay, Essay on Burleigh and his Times.

3 Stevenson, Memories and Portraits, p. 322 (Thistle edition).

WORDS AND FIGURES FOR CONNOTATION. 95

and by connotation tend to set the reader into the same
emotional sphere. What we connote with them, therefore,
is not an associated idea but a feeling, a state of mind. This
is brought out by some peculiar turn or manoeuvre in the
expression.

It is needless to say that an expression charged with emo-
tion is much less obedient to mere manipulation than one
that is not, nor will it submit to be manufactured. The
emotion must compel and produce the expression, not the
expression the emotion. Hence a question always near in
this kind of connotation is, how genuine, how well-motived,
is the informing mood.

Overt Figures of Emotion. — In these there is a direct line
of suggestion from the figure to the particular emotion it
connotes ; the figure is the sign and label of the writer's
mood.

Exclamation. — This is the figure perhaps most typical of
the whole class, its emotion is so evident on the surface.

This is to be distinguished from interjectional words (as
ah, alas, fie, hush), which latter are not in themselves figures
of speech, though they may go with the figure as its sign.
Exclamation as a figure of speech is the abrupt or elliptical
expression that a strongly felt thought takes before it has
calmed itself down to a logical affirmation. It connotes
wonder, or intense realization.

Example. — Note the difference in effect between the tame assertion,
"A man is a most wonderful creature ; he is noble in reason, in faculties he is
infinite," etc., and the same truth held up to view, as it were, by exclama-
tion : " What a piece of work is a man ! how noble in reason ! how infinite
in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action
how like an angel ! in apprehension how like a god ! " l

1 Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act ii, Scene 2.

96 DICTION.

If exclamation does not proceed from a valid and reason-
able cause for wonder, it is maudlin, giving the impression
that the writer is too easily excited, a "small pot soon hot."
This is especially applicable to the beginning of a discourse,
before the subject has acquired an emotional momentum ; if
then the writer or speaker is exclamatory, he is liable to
encounter not an answering wonder but amusement at his
impassioned performance.1

Note. — The exclamation-point is the natural mark of this figure ; but
there is a tendency in modern writing to use it less than formerly, and often
the figure is intended to connote so moderate an emotion that the point is
omitted. Sometimes exclamation competes with interrogation in the same
expression, and when wonder predominates, the exclamation-point may take
the place of the question mark, as, "Alas ! what are we doing all through
life, both as a necessity and as a duty, but unlearning the world's poetry,
and attaining to its prose!"2

Interrogation. — Here, as in the preceding case, distinction
is to be made between figurative and unfigurative uses. The
figure interrogation asks a question, not for the purpose of
obtaining information, nor even as an indication of doubt,
but in order to assert strongly the opposite of what is asked.
It presupposes the idea as so certain that the reader or hearer
may be challenged to gainsay the affirmation ; and in this,
its character as a virtual challenge, consists the energy of
the figure.

Thus interrogation connotes strong conviction, and is
naturally adapted especially to argumentative and oratorical
subject-matter.

Examples. — "What ! Gentlemen, was I not to foresee, or foreseeing
was I not to endeavor to save you from all these multiplied mischiefs and
disgraces ? . . . Was I an Irishman on that day that I boldly withstood

1 u The note of Exclamation is less in use than formerly : a social symptom ; —
as the progress of manners more and more demands the subduing of moral commo-
tion."— Earle, English Prose, p. 108.

2 Newman, Idea of a University, p. 331.

WORDS AND FIGURES FOR CONNOTATION. . 97

our pride ? or on the day that I hung down my head, and wept in shame
and silence over the humiliation of Great Britain ? I became unpopular
in England for the one, and in Ireland for the other. What then ? What
obligation lay on me to be popular ? " *

The unfigurative asking of questions for the purpose of
rousing interest, and then answering them, is just as legiti-
mate and natural as oratorical interrogation ; it is a means of
taking the reader into partnership with the writer, as it were,
in conducting an investigation.

Example. — " What is it to be a gentleman ? Is it to have lofty aims,
to lead a pure life, to keep your honor virgin ; to have the esteem of your
fellow-citizens, and the love of your fireside ; to bear good fortune meekly ;
to suffer evil with constancy ; and through evil or good to maintain truth
always ? Show me the happy man whose life exhibits these qualities, and
him we will salute as gentleman, whatever his rank may be ; show me the
prince who possesses them, and he may be sure of our love and loyalty."2

Here if the emotion were a little more intense we should expect, not the
investigation spirit, but the argumentative, and the question would natu-
rally be go framed as to challenge the reverse, "Is it not to have lofty
aims," etc.

Apostrophe and Kindred Figures. — The derivation of the
word apostrophe, from a.7ro and Tp€<f>a), "to turn from," does
not seem, at first thought, to suggest the principle of the
figure. The term refers to turning from the unemotional way
of expression, which speaks of objects in the third person, to
address some object directly, as if it were present. When
the object addressed is inanimate, the figure Apostrophe
involves also personification.

Apostrophe, carrying as it does the imagination of an
absent thing as if present and conscious of the address, con-
notes intense realization and fervor.

mpi.e. — In our present logical and undemonstrative age the figure
apostrophe has become somewhat obsolescent, and if attempted now would

1 Burke, Speech to the Electors of Bristol.

I THACKERAY, The Four Georges (Riverside edition), p. 10S.

98 DICTION.

run some risk of seeming manufactured or forced. The following, from
the Bible, is a very vivid example : —

" 0 thou sword of the Lord,
How long will it be ere thou be quiet ?
Put up thyself into thy scabbard,

Rest and be still.
How can it be quiet, — seeing the Lord hath given it a charge
Against Ashkelon, and against the sea-shore ?

There hath he appointed it." 1

The transition to the third person, in the fifth line, intensifies the figure ;
so also does the use of interrogation.

Two figures, or devices of expression, connoting a rather
more subdued feeling of realization, call for remark here.

i. Vision, still retaining the ordinary speech of the third
person, regards something distant in space as present and
under observation. This fact of course calls on the imagi-
nation to ignore absence and recall the traits of the object
definitely.

Example. —

" I see the wealthy miller yet,

His double chin, his portly size,

In yonder chair I see him sit,

Three fingers round the old silver cup —
I see his gray eyes twinkle yet

At his own jest — gray eyes lit up
With summer lightnings of a soul

So full of summer warmth, so glad,
So healthy, sound, and clear and whole,

His memory scarce can make me sad." 2

This figure is a means of calling attention to minute details which other-
wise would escape their due.

2. The Historical Present regards some event that is
past in time as present and going on before the reader's eyes,
that is, narrates it in the present tense.

The historical present is serviceable when the event re-

1 Jeremiah xlvii. 6, 7.

2 Tennyson, The Miller- 's Daughter.

WORDS AND FIGURES FOR CONNOTATION. 99

counted is of such cardinal importance that all its stages
and details have intensity of interest. It is often misused by
writers of crude taste who imagine that the tense makes the
vividness, whereas it is only the impressiveness of the event
that makes the use of the present natural. When adopted, the
historic present should be maintained consistently through-
out the passage, or at least not departed from except with
wisely calculated reason.

Example. — In the following, note not only the increased life imparted
by the Historic Present, but the consistency with which it is maintained,
and the careful skill shown in entering upon and departing from it : —

" Let me remember how it used to be, and bring one morning back again.

" I come into the second-best parlor after breakfast, with my books, and
an exercise-book, and a slate. My mother is ready for me at her writing-
desk, but not half so ready as Mr. Murdstone in his easy-chair by the
window (though he pretends to be reading a book), or as Miss Murdstone,
sitting near my mother stringing steel beads." [After a page or so of this
reminiscence in the present tense, the story is brought back to the ordinary
past tense of narration by the remark, beginning a new paragraph] : —

" It seems to me, at this distance of time, as if my unfortunate studies
generally took this course."1 [From here onward the tense is past.]

Hyperbole. — This figure magnifies objects beyond their
natural bounds, in order to make them more impressive or
more vivid. It connotes lively realization of some striking
trait, and results simply from the effort so to describe an
object that no element of its effect on the writer shall be lost
in transmission to the reader.

Hyperbole is a recognition of the fact that while the
observer may conceive an object vividly there is a shrinkage
in the reader's apprehension of it. Its exaggeration. does not
mislead ; it simply allows for the shrinkage, so that the net
result on the reader's part is a just realization of the object,
plus a touch of the emotion, exalted or whimsical, in which
the object is to be viewed.

1 Dickens, David ('<>/>/•<■ rjicld, Chap. iv.

100 DICTION.

The predominant use of hyperbole nowadays seems to be
for humorous description. Its misuse consists in not answer-
ing intimately to the spirit of the passage. Overdoing the
passion, it becomes bombast ; employed on too trivial an
occasion, it is ludicrous.

Examples. — " The groom swore he would do anything I wished ; and,
when the time arrived, went up stairs to bring the trunk down. This I
feared was beyond the strength of any one man : however, the groom was
a man

Of Atlantean shoulders fit to bear
The weight of mightiest monarchies ;

and had a back as spacious as Salisbury Plains." 1 — "In the way of furni-
ture, there were two tables : one, constructed with perplexing intricacy and
exhibiting as many feet as a centipede ; the other, most delicately wrought,
with four long and slender legs, so apparently frail that it was almost
incredible what a length of time the ancient tea-table had stood upon
them."2 J

Irony. — This figure expresses, or presupposes, the contrary
of what is meant, there being something in the context or in
the writer's tone to show the true state of the case. It is a
kind of reductio ad absurdum, assuming as it does that false is
true, and following the idea to its inverted conclusion.

Irony connotes contempt for an opposing view or opinion,
a contempt that under the various forms of satire, innuendo,
and sarcasm, ranges all the way from playful banter to
invective.

Examples. — " How devotedly Miss Strickland has stood by Mary's
innocence ! Are there not scores of ladies in this audience who persist in
it too ? Innocent ! I remember as a boy how a great party persisted in
declaring Caroline of Brunswick was a martyred angel. So was Helen of
Greece innocent. She never ran away with Paris, the dangerous young
Trojan. Menelaus, her husband, ill-used her ; and there was never any
siege of Troy at all. So was Bluebeard's wife innocent. She never peeped

1 De Quincey, Confessions of an Opium Eater, p. 24.

2 Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables, p. 49.

WORDS AND FIGURES FOR CONNOTATION. 101

into the closet where the other wives were with their heads off. She never
dropped the key, or stained it with blood ; and her brothers were quite
right in finishing Bluebeard, the cowardly brute ! Yes, Caroline of Bruns-
wick was innocent ; and Madame Laff arge never poisoned her husband ;
and Mary of Scotland never blew up hers ; and poor Sophia Dorothea was
never unfaithful ; and Eve never took the apple — it was a cowardly fabri-
cation of the serpent's." l

In the following the irony consists in describing evil in terms belonging
to the good : —

" It may well be conceived that, at such a time, such a nature as that
of Mai-lborough would riot in the very luxury of baseness. His former
treason, thoroughly furnished with all that makes infamy exquisite, placed
him under the disadvantage which attends every artist from the time that
he produces a masterpiece. Yet his second great stroke may excite won-
der, even in those who appreciate all the merit of the first. Lest his
admirers should be able to say that at the time of the Revolution he had
betrayed his King from any other than selfish motives, he proceeded to
betray his country." 2

One or two further remarks on the figure Irony may here
be made.

i. A passage not predominantly ironical in tone may be
made more spirited by an occasional ironical touch, which,
being less obtrusive, is correspondingly more graceful. Young
writers who employ this device often betray their anxiety
that their irony may not be missed by marking such touches
with an interrogation-point enclosed in parenthesis ; but this
is generally quite needless, arid in poor taste.

Examples. — " He leaned forward suddenly, and clutched Pete by the
throat, and the old man and Solomon were fain to interfere actively to
prevent that doughty member of the family from being throttled on the
spot. Pending the interchange of these amenities, Rick Tyler lay motionless
on the ground." 3 — "He [Browning] partially failed ; and the British pub-
lic, with its accustomed generosity, and in order, I suppose, to encourage the
others, has never ceased girding at him, because forty-two years ago he

1 Thackeray, The Four Georges, p. 16.

2 Macaulay, Essay on Hallam'ls Constitutional History.

8 Miss Murfree (Charles Egbert Craddock), Prophet of the Great Smoky
Mountains, p. 160.

102 DICTION.

published, at his own charges, a little book of two hundred and fifty pages,
which even such of them as were then able to read could not understand." 1

2. Irony, more especially in its modified form of satire or
innuendo, is an edge-tool of which the writer needs to be
very careful. Used habitually, or with zest, it begets a cap-
tious, cynical spirit which puts one out of touch with large
and noble ideals. Further it almost inevitably gives to writ-
ing an element of offense to simple and straightforward
minds ; they are afraid of a statement that scores them and
gives them no chance to reply. A man may make himself
dreaded in that way, may gain a reputation for keenness and
penetration, but he sacrifices something far more valuable.
Even Thackeray, kind-hearted as his friends know him to
have been, contracted such an inveterate habit of satire, on
certain subjects, that he is apologized for fully as much as he
is praised.

II.

Animus of Word and Figure. — The emotional figures hitherto
recounted seem to our modern taste rather forced and declama-
tory ; as overt and constructed figures they take themselves
too seriously and insistently ; and there is a very prevalent
tendency to soften them down to humorous uses or to subtle
touches, rather than bear weight upon them. Nowadays,
partly because literature is less emotional, partly because the
art of putting things is both more delicately managed and
more quickly responded to, more is left to suggestion, the
reader's emotion is played upon or awakened indirectly, not
so much by obvious means as by a tone and animus that
resides in the whole passage.

This is a very pervasive and Protean feature of literary art,
of which the following are the more prominent and outlying
aspects.

1 Augustine Birrell, Obiter Dicta, p. 91.

WORDS AND FIGURES FOR CONNOTATION. 103

The Spirit of a Comparison. — In addition to the illustra-
tive value of simile or metaphor, a delicate revelation of the
writer's mood or feeling is often made through the choice of
the object to which the matter in hand is compared. Thus
the figure may disparage or elevate, may convey contempt
or connote admiration or poke fun, and thus induce in the
reader a touch of the same mood.

Examples. — I. Of Simile. With the following passage it is natural
to associate sublimity ; this feeling, in fact, is stronger than the illustrative
value : —

" On the other side, Satan, alarmed,
Collecting all his might, dilated stood,
Like Teneriff or Atlas, unremoved :
His stature reached the sky, and on his crest
Sat Horror plumed." 1

The following connotes Ruskin's feeling of contempt for the object
described : " We have got into the way, among our other modern wretched-
ness, of trying to make windows of leaf diapers, and of strips of twisted
red and yellow bands, looking like the patterns of currant jelly on the top
of Christmas cakes ; but every casement of old glass contained a saint's
history."2 — The following evidently indulges in a sly laugh at its object :
" The unwonted lines which momentary passion had ruled in Mr. Pick-
wick's clear and open brow, gradually melted away, as his young friend
spoke, like the marks of a black-lead pencil beneath the softening influence of
India rubber."2,

2. Of Metaphor. The following both illustrates the manner of an action
and conveys a disparaging estimate of its character : " Pierre Bayle wrote
enormous folios, one sees not on what motive principle ; he flowed on for-
ever, a mighty tide of ditch-water ; and even died flowing, with the pen
in his hand."4 — The following, by a double entendre in the trope-word,
conveys a sly innuendo : " Sentences of the same calibre, some even of
far larger bore, we have observed in this and other works of the same
author."6

1 Milton, Paradise Lost, Book iv, 11. 985-989.

2 Ruskin, Two Paths, p. 101.

8 Dickens, Pickwick Papers, Chap. xv.

4 Carlyle, Sartor Resartus.

6 De Quincey, Literary Criticism, p. 206.

104 DICTION.

In the employment of figure a sound sense of humor and
congruity — in other words, a sane literary sense — must
always be present, or in some lapse of taste the comparison
may flat the note, or introduce unintentionally some uncon-
genial or ludicrous suggestion. It is eminently here that the
fineness of a writer's literary endowment shows.

Examples. — When, for instance, a young writer says of John Quincey
Adams's statesmanship that it was as pure as a lily, the figure may in part
illustrate, but it does not really belong with the idea statesmanship, it is
more congruous with more delicate ideas. — I once heard a clergyman,
endeavoring to describe pictorially some great heaps of white summer
cloud, say that they looked like immense great balls of popcorn. The
picture was successful; but — .

The Key of Words This expression, adopted from Robert

Louis Stevenson,1 suggests that in a masterfully written pas-
sage there is a certain relation of words to each other, by
which they aid each other in maintaining a congruous emo-
tional level ; they comport with a mood of homeliness or
severe dignity, of contempt or whimsey, of enthusiasm or
meditative pensiveness. This key of words, is kept fine and
unerring only by skill in the various strata or levels of the
vocabulary ; a writer must be at home in the dialect of beauty
or bluntness, of grace or coarseness, and know not only the
denotation but the feel, the congenial mood, of his word.

Examples. — There is a scale of expression by which the same idea or
act may be coarsened to various depths ; as is exemplified in the expres-
sions "to become intoxicated," " to get drunk," coarsest of all, " to get
_/#//." — A whole vocabulary of disparaging words is thus available, as
poetaster, criticaster, pulpiteer, fellow, manikin, and the like ; e.g. " It is
time for even the fiery pulpiteers to pause and reflect," where we know
well the writer's feeling toward the clergymen mentioned.

One of the most serviceable forms of this connotation is in a kind of
reduction of the idea to its lowest or boldest terms ; e.g. " A fool he was,
if you will ; but so is a sovereign a fool, that will give half a principality
for a little crystal as big as a pigeon's egg, and called a diamond : so is a

1 See above, p. 15, footnote.

WORDS AND FIGURES FOR CONNOTATION. 105

wealthy nobleman a fool, that will face danger or death, and spend half his
life, and all his tranquility, caballing for a blue riband ; so is a Dutch mer-
chant a fool, that hath been known to pay ten thousand crowns for a
tulip." 1 How such words may color a passage, forming a key or scheme
of expression, may be seen in the following : " What spectacle is more
august than that of a great king in exile ? Who is more worthy of respect
than a brave man in misfortune ? Mr. Addison has painted such a figure
in his noble piece of Cato. But suppose fugitive Cato fuddling himself at
a tavern with a wench on each knee, a dozen faithful and tipsy companions
of defeat, and a landlord calling out for his bill ; and the dignity of mis-
fortune is straightway lost. The Historical Muse turns away shamefaced
from the vulgar scene, and closes the door — on which the exile's unpaid
drink is scored up — upon him and his pots and his pipes, and the tavern-
chorus wrhich he and his friends are singing." 2

On the side of the connotation of idea, which in fact often blends with
the connotation of emotion, this subject has already been treated under
the head of Coloring due to Association ; see above, p. 93, which section
ought to be studied along writh this.

Reserve, or Understatement. — One result of the more deli-
cate literary art of our day is the frequent custom of describ-
ing intense or exciting facts in studiously mild terms, but
with such connotation as to lay the hint of it on the reader's
imagination, trusting to that to supply the commensurate
realizing mood. This reserve of statement is thus in a sense
the opposite of the overt figures of emotion. Instead of
exhibiting a great passion of excitement and by violent lan-
guage pulling the reader up to it, it works as it were to keep
the reader's emotion in advance of the expressed idea, by
sending his thoughts out toward a generously suggested effect
or situation.

A principle so broad as tris is hard to cover by typical
examples. One of the most striking ways of understatement
is by litotes,8 which suggests its intended idea by negating
its opposite ; connoting at the same time an animus of inten-

1 Thackeray, Henry Esmond, Book Hi, Chap. ii. 2 lb., Book i, Chap. i.

8 The connection of litotes with the double negative will come up for further men-
tion ; see below, p. 271.

106 DICTION.

sity, or challenge, or it may be satirical playfulness, the mood
being evident from the kind of terms employed.

Examples. — "He [the Puritan] had been wrested by no common
deliverer from the grasp of 710 common foe. He had been ransomed by
the sweat of no vulgar agony, by the blood of no earthly sacrifice." l Here
the negation of ordinary qualities sends out suggestion toward extraordi-
nary as far as the reader's imagination will go, and setting no limits, sug-
gests endless intensity.

The animus of innuendo is illustrated in the following : " The editor
is clearly no witch at a riddle,"2 where it is playfully intimated that he is
surprisingly stupid. — "I made up my mind that ambulances, viewed as
vehicles for driving distinguished ladies to military reviews, were not
a stupendous success, and that thereafter they had better be confined to
their legitimate uses of transporting the wounded and attending funerals." 3
In this last example the innuendo is a little overdone ; it lacks fineness.

1 Macaulay, Essay on Milton.

2 Carlyle, Essay on BoswelPs Johnson.
8 Porter, Campaigning with Grant.

CHAPTER V.
PROSE DICTION — STANDARD AND OCCASIONAL.

Entering now upon a new stage of our subject, we are to
consider the general effect and resultant of the words and
figures employed, the prevailing character and color that
these impart to the whole passage or composition. This is
what is meant distinctively by diction, the mere study and
choice of expression being virtually the primitive stage of
getting out the raw material. The problem of diction, then,
is a problem of artistry : of giving such marshaling and man-
agement to a scheme of words as to produce a homogeneous
tissue and movement of a certain determinate kind.

The most fundamental distribution of the subject is into
Prose Diction and Poetic Diction, to each of which a chapter
will be devoted, though each division, being subject at every
point to invasions from the other, must be considered con-
stantly with reference to the other. Under prose diction we
are first to inquire after the principle or standard to which all
prose, as prose, must conform, and secondly, to recount some
of the claims or liberties of prose, as determined by some
particular object or occasion.

Definition of Prose. — It is important to have as starting-
point a just idea of what is most central and character-giving
in prose, and this is well furnished by the various terms that
in time past have been used to designate it.

The designating word, to begin with, merely sets prose over
against verse. It comes from the Latin flrosa, a contracted
form of prorsa, which itself is a contraction of the compound

107

108 DICTION.

pro-versa, an adjective, feminine in form because the noun to be
supplied is the feminine oratio, " discourse " ; the whole mean-
ing, therefore, "straightforward discourse." The name was first
given, no doubt, because, instead of turning back and begin-
ning anew when it has reached a certain measured length (its
antithesis, versus, means a "turning"), the line keeps straight
on, as far as there is room for it. This seems a mere mechani-
cal distinction ; it reaches, however, deeper than chirography,
to the fundamental reason why a writer should turn back or
keep on. And for our modern distinctions this characteristic
straightforward lends itself just as legitimately to another
application. Prose discourse, we may say, is straightforward
in two large senses : it does not change the natural order of
words ; it does not depart from the common usage of words.

This is indicated in a figurative way by a second Latin
term for prose: sermo pedestris, discourse that goes on foot, as
distinguished from discourse that soars. Prose moves on the
earth, where common people and everyday practical affairs
belong ; it is the language of ordinary moods, ideas, senti-
ments, the form that unstudied speech and intercourse assume.
Like M. Jourdain,1 to whom the discovery was such a delight,
we have been talking prose all our life.

A third designation, oratio so/uta, "loosened " or "unbound
discourse," may seem at first thought to sanction a negligence
or carelessness in the construction of prose, engendered perhaps
by its common uses. The name, however, is simply another
contrast to metrical composition, bound as the latter is by
rigid rules. Nor, indeed, does the humbler office of prose
absolve it from the strictest and finest artistry. It is a mis-
take to suppose that good prose is easier to write than good
poetry ; it is just as hard and just as great a triumph, its
difficulties and problems being merely of another kind.

1 In Moliere's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme.

PROSE DICTION— STANDARD AND OCCASIONAL. 109

I. STANDARD PROSE DICTION.

Prose diction covers too vast and complicated a field, and
depends on too great a number of relative considerations, to
reduce itself easily, as does poetic diction, to formulated rules.1
All that can be undertaken here is to summarize the main
principles that condition prose diction, as traced in the choice,
arrangement, and connection of words.

The Prose Vocabulary. — When it is said above that prose
discourse is straightforward in the sense of not departing
from the common usage of words, it is not meant that any
part of the vocabulary is closed to it ; though, of course, some
words have a more poetic tinge than others, and some have
withdrawn almost entirely to the poetic realm, leaving more
homely equivalents to represent them in prose. It is doubtful,
however, if some legitimate prose situation may not exist for
even the rarest poetic coinages ; the principle of inclusion
and exclusion being not so much in the actual word chosen as
in the mood or standard of choice. The mood that governs
prose composition may on occasion turn almost every resource
to its service, so that the mood itself be not invaded.

Words chosen for Utility. — The ruling standard of choice,
made imperative by the dominating prose mood, is utility.
This, because it is the characteristic of prose, as distinguished
from verse, to use expression not for expression's sake, not for
the beauty or music or charm of the words in themselves, but
always with some ulterior end in view, — to instruct, or con-
vince, or impress, or persuade. As an objective point, exists

1 " To summarize the Art of Writing Prose in a code of rules would be something
like trying to do the same for the Art of behaving in the intercourse of the world.
I his is a matter in which it is easier to indicate principles, than to lay down rules." —
, English Prose, p. 151.

110 DICTION.

always a practical truth or fact ; it is the object of prose to
get the reader effectively to that point, without distracting his
mind with the scenery that he traverses on the way.

As long as this standard of utility dominates, any expres-
sion that promotes the end is open to prose ; it is free on
occasion to employ plainness of language or elaborateness,
simplicity or elegance, terseness or fulness, according as any
of these qualities may commend themselves as most practi-
cally useful for its purpose. Under this standard, in fact, the
rarest and most exotic words become simple working-tools, —
means to an end ; we do not think of the words themselves,
but of the fine shading or accurate definition that they give
to the thought.

The staple of a diction governed by such practical mood
will, of course, be the words of ordinary life and the recognized
usage of the day. Any departure from this into a more abstruse
or dignified region carries with it its sober justification.1 The
hardest words to reconcile with this utilitarian vocabulary are
the archaic and abbreviated forms of poetry ; if in any prose
they are found, it is such prose as seeks confessedly to pro-
duce poetic effects. This exception aside, inasmuch as the
pedestrian movement of prose has no occasion for quaintness,
and the rhythm of prose does not require abbreviation, when
such terms are employed they have merely the effect of affec-
tation and finery.2

Note. — The illustration of this point may best be quoted from Pro-
fessor Earle : "Asa general rule sober words should be chosen in prefer-
ence to those which are elevated or romantic. The young writer should
not write brethren for brothers, should not call a horse a charger, or a
palfrey, or a steed ; should not write welkin for sky, or whilome for once,
or ere for before, or vale for valley, or thrall for slave, or thraldom for
slavery."3

1 As is seen, for instance, under paragraph n, p. 68, above.

2 See Fine Writing, p. Jri, above.
8 Earle, English Prose, p. 153.

PROSE DICTION— STANDARD AND OCCASIONAL. Ill

In the same way, if picturesque language, word-painting or
epithet is employed in prose, it must have its justification in
utility. Picturesqueness may be part of the information con-
veyed, or it may be needful in order to give an assertion due
distinction. Epithet l is, of all these poetic devices, most
easily overdone in prose ; it is apt, unless watched, to clog
and cloy the expression ; the only way to keep it within the
bounds of good taste is to keep the practical claims of utility
always in sight.

Note. — To illustrate how picturesqueness may be an integral part of
the information conveyed, one or two examples, taken from Abbott and
Seeley's English Lessons for English People, may here be given.

It would hardly be fitting to use the expression " Emerald Isle " in ordi-
nary prose, as for instance, " Parliament, during this session, was mainly
occupied with the Emerald Isle " ; but the expression serves a useful pur-
pose, by reason of its descriptive character, in such a sentence as, " Accus-
tomed to the arid and barren deserts of Arabia, the eye of the returning
soldier rested with pleasure upon the rich, bright vegetation of the Emerald
Isle." Again, the essential epithet in " He drew his bright sword " is evi-
dently only a bit of useless finery ; but in the sentence, " Laughing at the
peasant's extemporized weapon, the soldier drew his own bright sword," the
epithet is a help in sharpening the antithesis and making the information
more vivid.

Figures for Clearness and Condensation. — Figures are as natu-
ral to prose as to poetry ; but when they are used the reader
is aware merely of their illustrative or illuminative value ; he
is not thinking of the figure but of the thought which it sup-
ports and interprets.2 So it is utility still, as in the choice of
words, which is the governing standard in prose diction.

The standard of utility has to be varied according to the
kind of information or instruction conveyed. If the thought
in hand is something that the reader must be made to under-
stand, it gives occasion only for the plain and literal class of
words ; if it is something that he must be made to imagine,

1 The subject of Epithet will come up again under Poetic Diction ; see below,
P- 147- 2 See difference between prose and poetic imagery, p. 146, below.

112 DICTION.

occasion immediately arises for the picturing power of words,
and for the elucidative value of analogy and simile.1 Hence
descriptive language is always heightened ; its work requires
imagery and vividness. As soon as any idea becomes com-
plex, it seeks to make itself realizable by the same means ; its
figures are a kind of description.

Example of Figure used to illustrate. — The following analogy
is used not for ornament at all, but to illustrate the tendency respectively
of conservatism, radicalism, and Christianity : " The bird is in prison in the
egg ; conservatism would leave the egg unbroken, leave everything as it is
and has been : it will get an addled egg. Radicalism would impatiently
break the shell to let the imprisoned captive free ; it will get a dead bird.
Christianity broods the egg and the bird breaks its own shell."2

The more incisive figures, and the figures that connote emo-
tion, are for prose a kind of shorthand 3 ; by their vivid and
thought-awaking quality they enable the writer to convey his
thought as it were by flashes, to say much more and more
effectively in a given space. The picturing quality remains,
it is true, but so as to give the reader just so much more than
he bargained for ; he set out to gain a thought and he gains
with it an inspiration and delight.

As prose becomes impassioned or imaginative, thus rising
in aim and tissue toward poetry, all these effects are corre-
spondingly heightened, until, in fact, prose diction and poetic
diction are subtly blended together ; but still the logic 4 of the
two remains distinguishable, and mainly on this standard of
utility. As long as all the subtle colorings and implications
of the diction focus in this, prose has almost unlimited realm

1 " There are two kinds of things — those .which you need only to understand, and
those which you need also to imagine. That a man bought nine hundredweight of
hops is an intelligible idea — you do not want the hops delineated or the man described ;
that he went into society suggests an inquiry — you want to know what the society
was like, and how far he was fitted to be there." — Bagehot, Literary Studies,
Vol. ii, p. 241. 2 Abbott, Christianity and Social Problems, p. 136.

3 See above, p. 76, footnote.

4 Coleridge's word, used by Matthew Arnold.

PROSE DICTION— STANDARD AND OCCASIONAL. 113

in vocabulary, and can on occasion carry a good weight of
poetry without burden.1

Note. — How prose may take elements of poetic diction, and on what
occasion, will come up for more detailed discussion in the next chapter;
see under Poetic Diction and its Interactions with Prose, pp. 163-170,
below.

II.

Prose Arrangement of Words. — This same principle of utility,
or practical effect, pushed forward into the arrangement of
words, identifies itself with the truth, already stated, that
prose as straightforward discourse does not depart from the
natural order of words. Liberties of arrangement, of course,
are open to it, as great perhaps as to poetry ; but they are
taken only for a reason which makes the new order, however
unusual, for the time being the natural order.

The Rationale : Directness and Emphasis. — The practical
object that dominates the order of a sentence is to steer its
thought directly and without dislocation to its goal, and at
the same time to put each word and clause in the position
where they will emphasize themselves in the degree commen-
surate with their intrinsic importance. If in any sentence
this reason for a particular arrangement is not fairly traceable,
the effect is either crude or artificial ; either the writer does
not know better, or he is indulging some fantastic whim.

Note. — In the following sentence the inverted order of the verbs (the
auxiliary before the subject) is not called for by any specially impassioned
character of the thought ; and the effect is simply crudeness : " Indeed, in
nearly all of George Eliot's novels can we trace in some character a like-
ness to their creator ; in Gwendolen even has the writer infused, perhaps
unconsciously, something of her own personality." — The slang exclamation
" Right you are! " current a few years ago, owed its vogue to its fantastic
change of order ; there is no other reason for it.

1 " Prose on certain occasions can bear a great deal of poetry ; on the other hand,
poetry sinks and swoons under a moderate weight of prose." — Landor.

114 DICTION.

In poetry the exigencies of metre often necessitate arbitrary
changes in the order of words. Objects are put before verbs
and even before prepositions, verbs march freely before their
subjects, and many other inversions equally violent pass unchal-
lenged, the reader mentally translating the order of expression
to the order of thought. But in the finest poetic artistry even
this amount of license is a suspect ; and the problem is either
to keep it down to its lowest limits or to justify it by emphasis
as well as by metre. The poems whose phrasing seems most
monumental and inevitable move most nearly in the natural
order. In prose such license does not weigh at all ; it is sim-
ply turning the thought without reason out of its direct line.
Inversions are, indeed, frequent in prose ; it is perfectly natu-
ral to transpose words and clauses into almost any desired
position ; but the change is made for one or both of two ends :
to throw an element into a desired stress or emphasis ; or to
group related ideas together, thus securing greater continuity
in the movement of the thought to its goal.

Note. — In the well-known hymn of Cowper's,

" God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform,"

the second line has to be inverted for no other reason than the demands
of accent and metre ; such inversion would not be admissible in prose. To
show, however, that such inversion is a necessity, by no means a requisite,
of poetry, we might quote Wordsworth's

" She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
A maid whom there was none to praise
And very few to love " ;

in the three stanzas of which there is not a single violation of what would
be quite admissible prose order.

For the Rationale of Inversion, see below, p. 276.

How Euphony ranks in Prose. — Euphony or smoothness of
word and structure, dependent as it is on sound, is more

PROSE DICTION— STANDARD AND OCCASIONAL. 115

generally associated with poetry than with prose ; the latter,
on its standard of utility, relying for all its processes on the
requirements of the idea. The question of agreeable sound,
then, cannot well come to the front until the claims of direct-
ness and force, with all their practical problems of unambiguous-
ness and stress, are satisfied. Just here a caution is needed,
especially on the part of young writers. Passages that in the
ardor of creation they compose with great though perhaps
uneven vigor are apt to seem intolerably rough when they
look them over in a more critical mood ; and so in revising
they are liable to smooth all the life out of them. Here is a
case where smoothness gets the whip hand ; and the problem
of rhetorical art is to retain the life and vigor, which are essen-
tial to the proper interpretative mood, and at the same time
remove so much of the roughness as imports crude lack of
skill.

There is a phase of euphony, however, which plays a large
part in prose. It is that conformity of sound to some descrip-
tive picture, or more inwardly to some sphere of ideas, which
is shown in the key of words.1 More striking still in poetry,
this plays a part in prose all the more artistic because it has
to be hidden and to a degree unsuspected. As soon as such
subtle manipulation of phrase sets up for itself, the immediate
effect is disenchantment ; the passage seems to have become
effeminate. Let the idea dominate : its intrinsic vigor, its
trenchancy, its rudeness, even its imaginative beauty ; and the
resulting smoothness or ruggedness of the passage justifies
itself. This is giving euphony its proper ancillary place.

III.

Prose Connection of Words. — As the quality of impressive-
ness or force, whether of passion or imagination, dominates in

1 See above, p. 104 sq.

116 DICTION.

poetry, so the dominant and indispensable quality of prose,
whatever else is secured or sacrificed, is clearness ; and to this
end its texture must be a continuity, wherein all the relations
of part to part are plainly recognized and marked. It is in
the maintenance of this clear continuity of texture that the
connection of words assumes an importance in prose, and a
fine delicacy, beyond what it has in poetry.

Joints and Bridges in the Structure. — What poetry would
often be free to omit, or leave the reader to supply, prose must
be more scrupulous to express, namely the subordinate parts,
the particles and phrases of relation which define the turning-
points of the thought and which make the transitions from
one stage or phase of the thought to another. There are thus
at every step both a distinction and a continuity to be looked
out for : the successive assertions both to be set apart from
each other in parallel or subordinate or contrasted relation,
and at the same time joined with each other as parts of one
tissue and movement. If at any point these relations are not
obvious, or not natural, the effect is that of a jolt or disloca-
tion, and not infrequently some part may appear in false light
or prominence.

Note. — To illustrate how much and what kind of material that may be
absent from poetry must be present in prose, let us endeavor to express
the thought of the following stanza from Browning, a stanza characterized
by great condensation, in such prose as by the ordinary standard will be
adequate to give the idea its requisite fulness : —

" ' Why from the world,' Ferishtah smiled, ' should thanks
Go to this work of mine ? If worthy praise,

Praised let it be and welcome : as verse ranks,
So rate my verse : if good therein outweighs
Aught faulty judged, judge justly [ Justice says :

Be just to fact, or blaming or approving :

But — generous ? No, nor loving ! '" 1

In changing this to prose, we must occasionally substitute a prose word
or idiom, or a prose order, for the poetic. The added matter is put in

i Browning, Ferishtah 'j Fancies, xii.

PROSE DICTION— STANDARD AND OCCASIONAL. 117

brackets. " Why," [said] Ferishtah [with a] smile, " should thanks be
rendered by the world for this work of mine ? If [it is] worthy [of] praise,
let it be praised, and [the praise will be] welcome. [Let men simply] rate
my verse as verse ranks. If [what is] good in it outweighs [what is ad-]
judged [to be] faulty, [let them at all costs] judge justly. Justice
demands [merely] that they honestly acknowledge [whatever is] fact,
whether [in] blame or [in] approval ; but [that they should be] gener-
ous ? No; [it does not demand that], — nor [that they should be] lov-
ing [either]."

Here it will be seen that the words to be supplied are almost exclusively
particles, — that is, words and phrases of subordinate rank whose business
it is to supply the joints and shadings and bridgings of the thought.

The Symbolic Element. — Apart from this distinction between
prose diction and poetic diction, it is important here to take
note of the two classes of words that make up the vocabulary
of every language, — called by Professor Earle presentive
and symbolic words.1 The presentive are those which by
themselves present a definite conception to the mind ; such are
nouns, verbs, and in lower degree adjectives and adverbs.
On these we depend for the body and substance of the
thought. The symbolic words are those which by themselves
contribute nothing to the thought, except as symbols of some
presentive idea or of some relation between ideas ; such are
pronouns, articles, prepositions, conjunctions. On these we
depend for well-nigh all that makes the thought over from a
loose accretion of words to an organism.

It is evident, then, that the masterly management of the
symbolic element is of unspeakable importance in the literary
art. In the skilful use of this element lies the secret of fine-
ness and flexibility of language. Symbolic words, in their
endlessly varied offices of modifying, repeating, connecting,
coloring the thought, are what make provision " for the lighter
touches of expression, the vague tints, the vanishing points."
Hence it is mostly by these that we estimate the efficiency of

1 Earle, Philology of the English Tongue, pp. 218 sqq. ; English Prose, p. 60.

118 DICTION.

a language as an instrument of thought. The ancient Greek
language, for instance, universally accounted the most flexible
of tongues in its adaptability to all intricacies of the idea,
holds that position chiefly by virtue of its fine and copious
symbolic element, its particles of relation and color.

The English language, from its lack of inflections, must be
correspondingly more scrupulous in its words of relation.
The syntax becomes more complex in proportion as the
etymology is more simple ; and thus the art of building words
together, so that order, relation, and modification shall be
adequately provided for and managed, is that which, in Eng-
lish, makes perhaps the most strenuous demands on the
writer's skill. This is especially true of prose writing, wherein
clearness is the paramount consideration : not only the words
chosen, but whatever belongs to the consecution and mutual
dependencies of the thought, goes to give complexity and
interest to the problem.1

II. PROSE DICTION AS DETERMINED BY OCCASION.

Different occasions of composition engender different moods
and forms of expression ; this is especially notable between
spoken discourse and written. While a general body of stand-
ard diction underlies both, the consciousness of the object in
view and the particular occasion of utterance give natural rise
to certain ways peculiar to each.

The Diction of Spoken Discourse. — The occasion of speaking,
exemplified most typically in oratory, as also the occasion of

1 " It is in the relation of sentences, in what Horace terms their ' junctura] that the
true life of composition resides. The mode of their nexus, — the way in which one
sentence is made to arise out of another, and to prepare the opening for a third, —
this is the great loom in which the textile process of the moving intellect reveals
itself and prospers." — De Quincey, Essay on Language.

PROSE DICTION— STANDARD AND OCCASIONAL. 119

writing discourse for public delivery, gives traits of its own to
the choice of words and to the general character and coloring
of sentences, which need here to be noted.

The Nucleus of Literary Prose. — The standard with which
all prose writing begins is naturally and properly conversa-
tion, the spoken word.1 Fundamentally literature is but the
means devised for putting speech into permanent form, so that
persons beyond the range of the voice and the limits of the
moment may profit by it. Whatever refinement literature
reaches, therefore, there still inheres in it as it were the vibra-
tion of a voice, dictating, as a sound universal rule, to write
as if speaking. That is, aim at the directness, the simplicity
of structure, the buoyant life, that belong ideally to conversa-
tion. If too great departure is made from this standard, the
style becomes either over stiff or over dainty. There is a
limpidness and at the same time a homely sturdiness in word
and phrase, which cannot so well be imparted as by writing
with the presence of an audience in mind, and with constant
thought of its capacities, its interests, its needs. This it is
that keeps expression near enough the earth for practical
comradeship.2

In the evolution of literary prose from conversation, the
first step, common to spoken and written diction, is taken by
becoming literary ; it has reached a stage of dignity and
refinement beyond the merely colloquial. In so doing it has
discarded what is merely of the day : the slang, the cant
phrase, the vulgar smartness of the street ; and whatever rises
from lack of disciplined thought : the halting inaccuracy and
poverty of vocabulary, the bald crudity of phrase, and the
disjointed chaotic sentences of heedless speech. Its words
are weighed, sifted, selected ; its assertions conscientiously

1 " Prose is the literary evolution of conversation, as Poetry is the literary evolu-
tion of singing." — EARLE, English Prose, p. 171.

adjustment of style to the reader, p. 21, above.

120 DICTION.

faithful in emphasis and coloring to a truth ; its progress
moulded to an organic plan and current. This is true, or
ought to be true, of the most extemporaneous as well as of the
most premeditated discourse ; it inheres with the primal literary
quality.

The truth to be noted here is, that this is a virtue of writ-
ing imported into speech. The diction of spoken discourse,
in its evolution to the literary, profits thus by written diction.
Here is a point where many public speakers have failed, or
reached only a mediocre success : they have neglected the
preliminary discipline. To gain control over public speech,
to learn to express himself well on his feet, the speaker must
both be constantly watchful over his everyday conversation
and exercise himself much in writing. Only so can he make
his tongue obey his will.

What the Occasion accentuates. — The occasion — direct appeal
to an audience, with its variety of minds and of apprehending
capacity — makes some characteristics of spoken diction imper-
ative whose claim written diction does not feel, and at the
same time grants some liberties denied to written discourse.
The following, indicated in a general way, are the most salient
of these.

i. The speaker must make his meaning intelligible at
once, must arrest the attention and arouse the interest of his
audience from the outset of his discourse, and not let that
attention slip. He has only the single opportunity to make
his impression, and everything must contribute to utilizing
that.

To this end, the thought must be massed in short and direct
sentences or sentence members, with plain grammatical struc-
ture ; the points of emphasis must be strongly marked ; and
often some pointed manner of expression, such as antithesis,
epigram, strongly balanced clauses and phrases, or trope,
may be employed to bring the thought out in bold relief.

PROSE DICTION— STANDARD AND OCCASIONAL. 121

In general, spoken diction calls for the more overt and clearly
marked ways of expression.

Note. — This applies in a notable degree to the particles and phrases of
relation, which, indeed, supply the place of an audible punctuation mark.
Where, for instance, a written passage would employ the colon, spoken dis-
course must often use " namely " ; and such expressions as " moreover,"
" in the next place," and the careful enumeration of points made or to be
made are much more numerous and much more necessary in spoken than
in written discourse.

2. The matter of spoken discourse is generally such thought
as needs not only to be made clear to the mind but enforced
in motive and conduct ; and in any case the speaker has to
contend to a greater or less degree with inert or wandering
attention.

In consideration of these facts the element of repetition plays
a much more prominent part in spoken than in written dic-
tion. All the important thoughts have to reappear not once
but many times, according to their importance ; they must be
reiterated, held up in different lights, subjected to various
illustrations and elucidations, until they have impressed them-
selves on the mind of every hearer.

Note. — Of course the problem is to repeat without seeming to repeat,
to keep hammering at the same thought in such a way as to pound it in,
yet not make it a monotonous iteration like the ding-dong of a bell. This
important matter of Repetition is touched upon in various places; see
especially under Shade of Meaning, p. 47 above, under Organic Processes,
p. 302 below, and under Amplification, p. 465 below.

3. In conversation, from which public spoken discourse
springs, there is a spontaneity, an extempore current, which
public speech cannot safely forego. It will not do to let the
sense of literary exertion iron it down into flat propriety and
regularity, like a book ; for then it is no longer speaking,
but a recitation.

Accordingly, spoken discourse is naturally more irregular,

122 DICTION.

in structure and flow, than written. Declarative sentences
are interspersed more freely with exclamation and interroga-
tion ; trains of thought are sometimes suggested and left to
the hearer to finish ; ellipsis of words or constructions is
indulged in when the hearer can be trusted to supply the lack.
All this, it need not be said, does not happen ; it belongs to
speaking as an art.

Note. — The overt figures of emotion, which, as mentioned on p. 102,
there is a tendency nowadays to tone down, belong more naturally to spoken
than to written diction ; they answer to the more emotional and vivid nature
of conversation, and they serve to bring out into relief effects which the
allusive figures are too delicate to make impressive before an audience. It
is a phase of the greater overtness and pointedness mentioned under
paragraph 1, above.

4. The vigor and vividness of conversation show themselves
especially in the degree of meaning in words ; there is a natural
tendency to use expression stronger or more sweeping than
literal sobriety will bear.1

Public spoken discourse, too, obeys the same tendency ; not
in choosing words aside from the meaning, — which is inexcus-
able anywhere, — but in pitching its expression in a more
intense key, using words charged with a more absolute or
extreme significance than can be brought strictly to book.
This excess of vividness easily corrects itself in the occasion
and object; so that when the natural shrinkage is allowed for,
the overstatement is not an over effect.

Note. — A notable example of this oratorical absoluteness or exaggera-
tion occurs in the Gospels, where Christ says : '<-He that cometh after me
and hateth not his father and his mother," etc., "he cannot be my disciple."
Every one understands that this does not enjoin hatred : it simply sets in
strong light the supreme claim of discipleship and allegiance to Christ, as
compared with any other.

Discourse written for Public Delivery. — Although the ideal of
spoken discourse is that its expression be extemporaneous, a

1 See above, p. 50.

PROSE DICTION— STANDARD AND OCCASIONAL. 123

large proportion of such discourse is, and will continue to be,
written and then read or recited in public. With some literary
tasks, as for instance public lectures, this is indeed almost a
necessity ; and doubtless the temperament and habits of
thought of a great many public speakers are such that they
can represent themselves better by discourse read from manu-
script than by purely extemporaneous utterance.

i. The difference between unpremeditated utterance and
manuscript discourse is a difference not of arbitrary election
merely but largely demanded by subject-matter. Where the
endeavor is merely to set forth a plain proposition, with
amplification of particulars, figures, anecdote, all the resources
of expression needed can ordinarily be trusted to the inspira-
tion of the moment. Where, on the other hand, the logical
structure is close, the discriminations and colorings fine, the
issues weighty, it is an advantage to commit the expression
carefully to writing. Something therefore depends, for the
settlement of this question, on the kind of thinking that the
orator elects to do. The extempore kind is of course entirely
worthy ; but many, committing themselves to it out of reluc-
tance to undergo the labor of pen work, simply commit them-
selves thereby to thin and sloppy habits of thought.

2. The motive for writing a public address beforehand is
simply conscientious fidelity to a deeply felt truth, and the
overmastering desire to put it in such words as the speaker
can stand by. Many are the indignant denials on the part of
public speakers who, carried away by the ardor of debate or
interest, overstate their case or say what they do not mean.
The manuscript speech furnishes a means of keeping within
bounds.1

3. The thing most necessary to be remembered, and yet

1 " Do not think that I am speaking under excited feeling, or in any exaggerated
terms. I have written the words I use, that 1 may know what I say, and that you,
if you choose, may see what I have said." — Kuskin, Two Paths, p. 50.

124 DICTION.

oftenest disregarded, in such writing, is that its texture is pre-
cisely that of spoken discourse. The quiet mood of the writer
in his study must give way to the impassioned mood of the
orator in the presence of his audience. Sentences must be
simple and pointed ; the distance between pauses should be
short ; the articulations of the thought should be vigorously
marked ; and the hearer should not be made to carry a burden
of thought in mind, waiting for its result or application. The
same need exists for repetition and amplitude as in purely
spoken discourse. The irregularities of style, and the exagger-
ation due to intensity, while still perceptible and spontaneous,
are naturally somewhat toned down, both on account of the
subject-matter which this discourse generally works in, and by
the transmission through the process of writing.

Illustrations of Spoken Diction. — Two passages are here adduced
to show the general texture of spoken diction and how it answers its
occasion.

i. The first, from one of Cardinal Newman's sermons, in its simplicity
of structure, brevity of sentence members, and skilful repetition and ampli-
fication of thought, well illustrates the tissue of style suitable alike to
extempore discourse and to discourse written for public delivery : —

" There are two worlds, ' the visible and the invisible,' as the Creed
speaks, — the world we see, and the world we do not see; and the world
which we do not see as really exists as the world we do see. It really
exists, though we see it not. The world that we see we know to exist,
because we see it. We have but to lift up our eyes and look around us,
and we have proof of it : our eyes tell us. We see the sun, moon and
stars, earth and sky, hills and valleys, woods and plains, seas and rivers.
And again, we see men, and the works of men. We see cities, and stately
buildings, and their inhabitants ; men running to and fro, and busying
themselves to provide for themselves and their families, or to accomplish
great designs, or for the very business' sake. All that meets our eyes forms
one world. It is an immense world ; it reaches to the stars. Thousands
on thousands of years might we speed up the sky, and though we were
swifter than the light itself, we should not reach them all. They are at
distances from us greater than any that is assignable. So high, so wide,
so deep is the world ; and yet it also comes near and close to us. It is
everywhere ; and it seems to leave no room for any other world.

PROSE DICTION— STANDARD AND OCCASIONAL. 125

" And yet in spite of this universal world which we see, there is another
world, quite as far-spreading, quite as close to us, and more wonderful ; '
another world all around us, though we see it not, and more wonderful than
the world we see, for this reason if for no other, that we do not see it. All
around us are numberless objects, coming and going, watching, working or
waiting, which we see not : this is that other world, which the eyes reach
not unto, but faith only." 1

2. The second, from Charles James Fox, illustrates the impetuous, irreg- ,
ular, intensified structure of extemporaneous speech : —

" We must keep Bonaparte for some time longer at war, as a state of
probation. Gracious God, sir ! is war a state of probation ? Is peace a
rash system ? Is it dangerous for nations to live in amity with each other?
Are your vigilance, your policy, your common powers of observation, to be
extinguished by putting an end to the horrors of war ? Cannot this state
of probation be as well undergone without adding to the catalogue of
human sufferings? 'But we must pause T What! must the bowels of
Great Britain be torn out — her best blood be spilled — her treasure wasted
— that you may make an experiment ? Put yourselves, oh ! that you would
put yourselves in the field of battle, and learn to judge of the sort of horrors
that you excite ! In former wars a man might, at least, have some feeling,
some interest, that served to balance in his mind the impressions which a
scene of carnage and of death must inflict. If a man had been present at
the battle of Blenheim, for instance, and had inquired the motive of the
battle, there was not a soldier engaged who could not have satisfied his
curiosity, and even, perhaps, allayed his feelings. They were fighting, they
knew, to repress the uncontrolled ambition of the Grand Monarch. But
if a man were present now at a field of slaughter, and were to inquire for
what they were fighting — ' Fighting ! ' would be the answer ; ' they are not
fighting ; they are pausing.'' ' Why is that man expiring ? Why is that other
writhing with agony ? What means this implacable fury ? ' The answer
must be, 'You are quite wrong, sir, you deceive yourself — they are not
fighting — do not disturb them — they are merely pausing/ This man is
not expiring with agony — that man is not dead — he is only pausing/
Lord help you, sir! they are not angry with one another; they have now
no cause of quarrel; but their country thinks that there should be a. pause.
All that you see, sir, is nothing like fighting — there is no harm, nor cruelty,
nor bloodshed in it whatever: it is nothing more than a political pause /
merely to try an experiment — to see whether Bonaparte will not
behave himself better than heretofore; and in the meantime we have
agreed to a pause, in pure friendship ! ' And is this the way, sir, that you
1 Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. iv, p. 200.

126 DICTION.

are to show yourselves the advocates of order ? You take up a system
calculated to uncivilize the world — to destroy order — to trample on
religion — to stifle in the heart, not merely the generosity of noble senti-
ment, but the affections of social nature ; and in the prosecution of this
system, you spread terror and devastation all around you." 1

It will be noted that the logical structure of this second example, which
is very simple, consists mostly in ringing changes on the idea of pausing,
and in supplying such descriptive amplification as suggests itself to an
excited mind : a structure, therefore, well adapted to the purely extempore.

II.

The Diction of Written Discourse. — As has been intimated
above, writing is merely the permanent form given to what
is fundamentally the spoken word. Its determining motive
therefore is permanence. What is spoken is for the occasion ;
what is written is for all occasions. Further, modern times
add another standard : what is written, that is, as seriously
meant literature, is for print. The marks and methods of
print apply also to the manuscript ; there is no more reason
for the writer to neglect the conventional signs of print, or to
devise methods of his own, than there is for him to translate
oral discourse from speaking into singing. The motive of per-
manence, with observance of the standards that represent
permanent rather than temporary expression, is to govern him.

This engenders for writing a dominating mood of accuracy, —
the desire to get the expression just right, beyond the need of
revision or correction. Along with this mood goes undeniably
a certain sense of formalism and dignity, different in degree
according to the undertaking, from a descriptive sketch to a
state document ; a mood to be watched and corrected by
constant recollection of the primal standard, speech, and over-
come in favor of a greater approach to the colloquial accord-
ing as the sense of formalism tends to pass into the stiff and

1 Charles James Fox, Speech on Rejection of Bonaparte' 's Overtures, Select
British Eloquence, p. 549. It is this edition that must be responsible for the
punctuation.

PROSE DICTION— STANDARD AND OCCASIONAL. 127

pedantic. In the management of this quality is scope for the
writer's skill and naturalness.

Distinctions from Spoken Discourse. — Three general charac-
teristics may here be given, in which the differences between
written and spoken discourse are marked enough to affect the
tissue of the diction : —

i. The prevailing mood of accuracy and form shows itself
in the somewhat scrupulous tone of statements. The words
chosen must express neither more nor less than the thought ;
and often statements are guarded and qualified in order to be
kept safe within the bounds of truth ; for the writer needs to
say only what he can stand by, having no opportunity of oral
explanation or correction.

Note. — This disposition to supply saving clauses and guarding modi-
fiers may of course become excessive. It is softened and disguised in the
lighter forms of prose, as narrative and description ; but even in its disguised
form an actual conscientiousness for the exact word and color exists and is
traceable.

2. Writing, except when it imitates conversation, discards
the contractions of unguarded speech, such as, do?i7t, can't, it 's
for it is, he fs for he is, he '11 for he will, and the like ; not that
these lack in correctness or even in dignity, but they connote
a mood too informal for written literature. It also supplies
particles where conversation is freer to omit them, and dis-
cards many of the elliptical, inexact phrases used in speech.

Note. — In discourse written for public delivery, as, for instance, one
of Professor Huxley's lectures, the conversational contractions are often
retained in the printed edition, serving to limber up the somewhat abstruse
subject-matter of science, and keep the style within hailing distance of
conversation.

3. Writing is less varied in construction, and at the same
time more complex, than speech. Less varied, because it
must keep, for the most part, to one tone of discourse ; it has
not the impassioned occasion of speech ; hence interrogation,

128 DICTION.

exclamation, and other means of variety and vividness, instead
of belonging to the genius of the style, are reserved for an
occasional touch. More complex, because suspensive structure,
long sentences and sentence-members, and involved modifica-
tions of the thought can be more safely employed, since the
written or printed page is there, to be studied at leisure.

Note. — The following sentence, in its complex structure and the length
between joints, is an extreme of what is admissible in writing, and far
beyond what is natural to a spoken utterance: —

" On her first arrival in Leicester, in a milieu, that is to say, where at
the time ' Gavroche,' as M. Renan calls him — the street philosopher who
is no less certain and no more rational than the street preacher — reigned
supreme, where her Secularist father and his associates, hot-headed and
early representatives of a phase of thought which has since then found
much abler, though hardly less virulent, expression in such a paper, say,
as the ' National Reformer,' were for ever rending and trampling on all the
current religious images and ideas, Dora shrank into herself more and

Mechanical Aids to "Written Diction. — One reason why spoken
diction may be left less finished is that the speaker conveys
his meaning not only by words but by gesture, expression
of countenance, modulation of voice. All these written dis-
course must forego ; but all these, so far as they are neces-
sary to the thought, must be in some way represented. This
demand gives rise to certain signs and marks of relation
which, as they do not affect the articulation of the sentence,2
but merely modify the stress and current of the style, need
here to be mentioned.

i. For increasing the stress of a word or clause the accepted

1 Mrs. Ward, David Grieve, p. 165.

2 Printers' marks are of various orders. Some, as capitals, apostrophe, and elision
mark, diaeresis, hyphen, and quotation-marks, belong to grammar ; they are no more
a part of rhetoric than is spelling. Others, used for modifying the stress or coloring
of a passage, belong to written diction, and are discussed here. Still others, the
distinctive marks of punctuation, belong to the composition or articulation of the
sentence, and will be found discussed in the chapter on The Sentence, pp. 325-334,
below.

PROSE DICTION— STANDARD AND OCCASIONAL. 129

means is the use of italics, represented in manuscript by
underlining. The custom of italicizing for emphasis is on
the decrease, partly for the same reason that applies to excla-
mation,1 namely, the prevalent tendency to subdue the signs
of emotion, and partly because the skilful placing of words is
more relied onto make important elements stress themselves.
The effectiveness of an italicized passage depends largely on
its infrequency ; the device is to be employed only for the
exceptional occasions when the utmost advantage of position
fails to give the word stress enough.2 A means of increasing
distinction, more used by English writers than by American,
is the occasional employment of a capital to begin a word
not a proper name nor personified, solely to mark it as a car-
dinal word in the passage. In this usage personal idiosyn-
crasy plays some part ; Carlyle, for instance, employed this
device incessantly.

Examples. — i. Of Italic. In the following sentence the first use of
italics is for stress, the second to mark non-English words, as noted above,
p. 59 : " His various and exotic knowledge, complete although unready
sympathies, and fine, full, discriminative flow of language, fit him out to
be the best of talkers ; so perhaps he is with some, not quite with me —
froxime accessit, I should say." 3

2. For diminishing or otherwise shading the stress of a
word or clause, several marks are used. — The marks of
parenthesis () are used to inclose a subordinate phrase used
for elucidation. This phrase occupies a plane of its own, and

1 See above, pp. 96, 102.

2 It will be recalled how Thackeray uses italicizing as a sign of vulgarity or lack
of culture, in the letters that he makes some of his characters write ; see, for instance,
Henry Esmond, p. 317. Hawthorne, it is said, detested the employment of italics
for stress ; a feeling that we can well understand from the perfect poise and sanity of

itences, — they do not need it.

I 1 Vinson, Memories and Portraits, p. 277. In tins whole volume, though
>n employs italics more freely than is usually done for foreign words, titles of
books, and quoted 1 onversation, I can find no more than three or four clear cases of
Italicizing for stress.

130 DICTION.

is read aloud with an attenuated tone of voice. As paren-
thesis is an interruption, the rule is to make it as short and
light as possible ; it is poor form to make a parenthesis out-
weigh the main assertion, or draw away attention from it. —
Parenthesis is less used than formerly, its place being largely
taken by the double dash, that is, a dash at each end of a
clause or phrase, inclosing it much as do marks of paren-
thesis. The inclosed matter is in fact a minor parenthesis,
that is, used for a lighter touch and less of an interruption
to the course of the sentence than the old-fashioned paren-
thesis, — a sign, perhaps, of the more buoyant and delicately
balanced diction that marks present artistry in prose. — As
the double dash, like the parenthesis, marks the lowering of
the plane and then the return to the former level, the single
dash marks a similar sinking without return. It is used to
set off sometimes a restatement with variation of form, some-
times a sly comment by way of surprise. The use of the dash
may easily become a disagreeable mannerism, producing a
kind of jaunty, skittish effect.

Examples. — i. Parenthesis. "It is remarkable that this Evangelist
(said to be anti-Jewish) has alone recorded our Lord's attendance at these
feasts, and has used them as landmarks to divide the history." 1

2. Double Dash. " I have seen some Olivias — and those very sensible
actresses too — who in these interlocutions have seemed to set their wits
at the jester, and to vie conceits with him in downright emulation." 2

3. The Single Dash. For varied restatement : " Philosophy may throw
doubt upon such yearning, science may call it a dream ; but there is in
humanity what is above and beyond science — the language of the heart,
whose voice speaks in tones which echo through eternity." 3 — For surprise :
" All this is excellent — upon paper. Unfortunately, we have always had a
very efficient army upon paper," etc.4

1 Salmon, Introduction, New Testament, p. 318.

2 Lamb, Essays of Elia, On some of the old Actors.
8 Davidson, The Doctrine of Last Things, p. 130.

4 The London Times, March 12, 1889. In writing this paragraph, and in adopt-
ing the quotations, use has been made of Earle, English Prose, pp. 103-109.

PROSE DICTION— STANDARD AND OCCASIONAL. 131

3. For securing differences in distinction and movement,
the ordinary marks of punctuation are intensified or attenu-
ated, commas raised to semicolons and vice versa, thus retard-
ing or accelerating the current according to the sense to be
conveyed. In a sentence of subordinate or parenthetical
significance, punctuation is dispensed with or reduced to its
lightest possible, in order that the thought may be rapidly
traversed ; in a sentence of much importance every phrase may
be set off by commas, or what would naturally require a comma
may take a semicolon, in order that each detail may secure
its due attention. It is thus that a strong individuality
may be given to punctuation, so that it ceases to be merely
mechanical and becomes an instrument of interpretation and
shading.

Examples. — Compare the following two sentences from Huxley. In
the first he wTishes to make every detail prominent : " Anything which pro-
fesses to call itself education must be tried by this standard, and if it fails
to stand the test, I will not call it education, whatever may be the force of
authority, or of numbers, upon the other side." In the second he attenu-
ates the punctuation of the parenthesis, striking out the comma that would
naturally come in the middle: "The object of what wTe commonly call
education — that education in which man intervenes and which I shall dis-
tinguish as artificial education — is to make good these defects in Nature's
methods ; to prepare the child to receive Nature's education, neither inca-
pably nor ignorantly, nor with wilful disobedience ; and to understand the
preliminary symptoms of her displeasure, without waiting for the box on
the ear." i In the part after the double dash the punctuation is very full :
commas supplied at each small pause, and semicolons setting off phrases
that some would mark with commas. This intensifying of the comma
into the semicolon is very noteworthy in the following : " Some earlier and
fainter recollections the child had of a different country; and a town with
tall white houses ; and a ship." 2 It is evidently the writer's intention to
make his reader stop and consider every detail.

1 Huxley, Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews, pp. 32, 34.

2 Thackkray, Henry Esmond, p. 19.

132 DICTION.

III.

Manufactured Diction. — There remain to be noted some
such special types as antique diction, foreigner's English, and
dialect. All these are grouped under the head of manufac-
tured diction because the composing of them has necessarily
to be a tour deforce, a made product, like speaking in a for-
eign language. The thinking is done in the writer's own
tongue, and then translated into a medium more or less alien
according to the less or greater thoroughness of his ante-
cedent training.

The Preliminary Discipline. — It is important, therefore, to
insist at the outset upon thorough preparation for this kind
of writing ; it must be the work of an expert, eliminating
entirely the flavor of the manufactured article, and sounding
like the spontaneous utterance of one to the manner born.
A foreign language is mastered in its delicacy only in the
country where it is native ; otherwhere it cannot get beyond
the "scole of Stratford-atte-Bowe." * Just so it is with these
exotic kinds of diction. To an extent their words and turns
of expression may be picked up, as it were, from the flotsam
lying around loose ; but the real flavor comes only from long
conversance, until thinking in that medium is the primary
process. Used mostly for lighter purposes, for playfulness or
humor, such diction exacts a discipline and special scholar-
ship eminently serious and strenuous.

Note. — One of the most celebrated instances of success in an alien
diction is found in Thackeray's Henry Esmond, which not only recounts a
story, but reproduces the manner, of speech of Queen Anne's time; and
the enormous pains taken in preparation for the writing of it, in reading
the literature of that period for years, until the writer's mind was saturated
with its colorings and ways of thinking, is a matter of record.

The Usage portrayed. — What makes all this preliminary train-
ing imperative is of course the demand of utter faithfulness

1 Chaucer's expression ; see Canterbury Tales, Prologue, 1. 125.

PROSE DICTION— STANDARD AND OCCASIONAL. 133

to the usages of the diction adopted. No amount of literary
deftness can dispense with this, any more than a story or essay
can dispense with correct grammar ; it is fundamental.

A word of remark may here be given about each kind of
diction named above.

i. The antique comes from the study of some past usage
or period of literary expression, like that of Malory's Morte
Darthur, for instance, or the Bible. To be kept free from
lapses of consistency requires not only the literary spirit
which can move at home in past habits of thought and
phrase but the sound philological knowledge which can sepa-
rate the strata of usage peculiar to the different ages and
follow the analogies of form, derivation, and the like, charac-
teristic of each period. Working in the antique is cheapened
and vulgarized by the throwing about of catchwords like
whilom, quoth, in sooth, yclept ; such relics of the "by my hali-
dome " period of writing are nowadays beneath the dignity
even of humor ; and this because the real proficiency is felt
to be more a matter of flavor and texture than of single hard-
used words. Imitation of biblical diction, inasmuch as the
Bible is always with us a sacred possession, is hazardous, not
to say a foregone failure, because if applied to thought less
serious than that of Scripture it is necessarily a parody of
what is most venerated, while if applied to solemn thought it
runs the risk of being either artificial — which defeats its end
— or goody-goody.

Note. — The peril of an assumed diction of a past period arises from
the fact that a very small slip will betray the manufacture and destroy the
illusion. It will be remembered how Lowell pointed out to Thackeray the
modern provincialism "different to" in Henry Esmond; and how Ignatius
Donnelly's Baconian cipher was discredited by the occurrence therein of
the modern split infinitive.

2. The composition of foreigner's English — that is, of
the lame articulation and uncouth idiom adopted by persons,

134 DICTION.

especially uneducated persons, to whom a foreign language is
native — may, in the language of fire insurance, be marked
"extra-hazardous." The conversance required is that of one
who is able to think at first hand in the foreign tongue, and
who from this ability as a centre can look out through the
peculiarities and limitations of articulation, the idioms, the
general spirit of the language portrayed. There is not only a
changed set of words in question, but a different approach to
thought ; an American joke translated into German or German
English would not be at all like German humor. The hardest
yet the most indispensable thing in the representation of for-
eigner's English is suffusing the whole tissue of the diction with
the foreigner's natural mood. If this cannot be done, the
foreign English is merely an empty shell of expression.

3. The same remarks apply to the writing of dialect, and
a like conversance is required ; for this reason it is that
novelists laying their scenes in a certain district take the
pains of a long sojourn and acquaintance to work up what is
called " local color," and still better it is when, as in the case
of George W. Cable and Ian Maclaren, a lifetime has been
spent in contact with the people and the dialect portrayed.
The mastery of a dialect comes from a systematic and sym-
pathetic study of provincialisms, colloquial peculiarities, and
traits of articulation ; in this way a language is worked up
which can be traced in its entirety to no one person, perhaps,
but which in general represents the usage of a whole region.

The Literary Shaping. — To say that the writer, in compos-
ing the foregoing kinds of diction, must be faithful to the
usage portrayed is to give only half his tas'k. All these have
to undergo a process of toning-down and modification ; on
the crude usage adopted there is superinduced a literary shap-
ing, by which they are freed from what is unintelligible or
estranging and adapted to present readers. This in two
ways. In the first place the diction in question is carefully

PROSE DICTION— STANDARD AND OCCASIONAL. 135

moulded to self-consistency ; it obeys its analogies and con-
gruities, its laws of formation and taste, like a vernacular.
Secondly, it is not carried to extreme. If a manufactured usage
were absolutely true to the actual, reproducing all the pecul-
iarities accessible, it would be neither pleasing nor artistic
nor intelligible : the writer would simply be wallowing in dia-
lect, as if that were his end. The value of these usages is
merely as a flavor,1 a means of coloring thought and giving
some characteristic human quality. Accordingly, the literary
shaping or workmanship leaves the usage just enough accen-
tuated to suggest the desired flavor, while it leaves the senti-
ment of the thought unimpeded. There is a delicacy about
it, a refinement, which counteracts the native vulgarity or
uncouthness : it is like displaying jewels in the rough, or like
nature's noblemen expressing the sentiments of the court in
the tongue of the multitude. Any such manufactured dic-
tion, after all, is merely a means, not an end ; the moment it
is employed for its own sake, or in greater degree than is
necessary for its end, it becomes unreal and tawdry.

III. MAINTENANCE OF THE TONE OF DISCOURSE.

This is an important matter, a general summing-up of
artistic prose diction, which calls for the alert and cultivated
literary sense.

i. To merit the name of diction, to presume on the suf-
frage of a reader, the style must not content itself to be abso-
lutely raw and pedestrian, however correct ; it must possess a
dignity and distinction which will evince at least the writer's
desire to please. The literary endeavor in itself produces a
certain elevation of tone, a table-land of expression below
which the conscientious writer will be careful not to fall.2

1 See I'.ii . Talks on Writing English, pp. 245-250.

2 " Hut, whatever becomes of details, the general requisite is that there must be
something of elevation. There is a certain distinction of manner which cannot be

136 DICTION.

This noblesse oblige operates to prune away negligences, to
make each phrase full and rounded, to induce a play of
imagination and apt choice and urbanity which will make the
reader aware at every moment that the writer values his good
will. Thus in every well-meant discourse the key of words,
as compared with colloquialism or dead reportage, will be
high, will be mindfully self-consistent, will be watchful not to
flat the note.1

Examples of Untuned Prose. — As an illustration of lack of tone
and distinction, with a criticism upon it, the following is quoted by Pro-
fessor Earle from the Saturday Review : —

" Notwithstanding the praise heaped upon them by Mr. Laing, these
Sagas cannot be called a model of historical writing. Although occasion-
ally picturesque and incisive, the style is, on the whole, bald in the extreme.
Here is a specimen, taken absolutely at random, which sets out the history
of a certain Halfdan : ' Half dan was the name of King Eystein's son who
succeeded him. He was called Halfdan the Mild, but the Bad Entertainer
— that is to say, he was reported to be generous, and to give his men as
much gold as other men gave of silver, but he starved them in their diet.
He was a good warrior, who had been long in Viking cruises, and had
collected great property. He was married to Hlif, a daughter of King
Vestmara. Holtar, in Vestfold, was his chief house, and he died there on
a bed of sickness, and was buried at Borro under a mound.' This kind of
writing, although it has the merit of simplicity, when followed over an
expanse of fourteen hundred pages, ends by confusing the mind."

2. In addition to this elevation incumbent upon all, every
literary work strikes a certain keynote, elevated or colloquial
or humorous or graceful ; and while it is often an elegance

defined, and yet is felt. It is a blending of modesty and dignity. It is the difference
between presentable and unpresentable. Literary diction must not wear an appear-
ance of slackness or negligence, it must not be in undress ; — it must not ignore the
presence of the public before whom it appears. Without incorrectness or the break-
ing of any rule, a sentence may betray a want of something, we can hardly say what,
which makes it unsatisfactory, we can hardly say why. This is the defect which is
vaguely characterized as 'bald.'" — Earle, English Prose, p. 173.

1 The key of words, as related to connotation and emotional congruity, has already
been discussed; see above, p. 104.

PROSE DICTION— STANDARD AND OCCASIONAL. 137

and advantage to rise on occasion into a higher strain, it is
unfortunate to fall unadvisedly below the level adopted.

This is most noticeable when prosaic words and turns of
expression creep into poetry. While prose, especially on im-
passioned or exalted occasions, may easily rise into the poetic,1
as soon as poetry sinks, by as much as a single phrase, to the
level of prose, the disenchanting effect is felt at once.

Example. — In the following stanza of poetry, none of which indeed is
keyed very high, the prosaic tone and movement of the bracketed lines, as
compared with the rest, are plainly felt : —

" So, from the sunshine and the green of love,

We enter on our story's darker part ;
[And, though the horror of it well may move

An impulse of repugnance in the heart,
Yet let us think,] that, as there 's naught above

The all-embracing atmosphere of Art,
So also there is naught that falls below
Her generous reach, though grimed with guilt and woe." 2

The fact that the vocabulary is in strata, lower and higher,
and that the congruous level must be maintained, is apparent
when a slang or colloquial expression creeps inadvertently into
a severe discourse, or when a very commonplace thing is said
in a solemn way or vice versa ; it makes the literary sense at
once aware of the claims of tone, of taste, of keeping.

Example. — In the following passage the objection to the italicized
words is not that they are incorrect, but that they flat the note : " The
task was indeed mighty, but Luther was a giant among men. Nor was his
fatherland entirely out of sorts. The life-lessons of Wyckliffe and Huss
had not been lost."3

A few years ago a very amusing little biography, written in English by
a native Hindostanee, was published in Calcutta ; and the most ludicrous
faults in its style were owing to the fact that the writer, having obtained
all his words from a dictionary, had no sense of the difference of tone
and spirit in different expressions. Words, idioms, proverbial expressions

1 See above, p. 113, footnote, and the chapter on Poetic Diction below.

2 Lowell, A Legend of Brittany. 8 From a student essay.

138 DICTION.

belonging to the most curiously discordant strata of thought were jumbled
together. The following sentences will illustrate this : " His first business,
on making an income, was to extricate his family from the difficulties in
which it had been lately enwrapped, and to restore happiness and sunshine
to those sweet and well-beloved faces on which he had not seen the soft
and fascinating beams of a simper for many a grim-visaged year." " It
was all along the case, and it is so up to this time with the Lieutenant
Governors, to give seats to non-professional men (who are or were as if
cocks of the roost, or in other words, Natives of high social status) in the
Council." " He then came in his chamber to take his wonted tiffin, and
felt a slight headache, which gradually aggravated and became so uncon-
trollable that he felt like a toad under a harrow." I

It is one of the privileges of humor or of satire to lower
the key intentionally, in some word or passage, thus by the
connotation furnished by a different association infusing a
passing shade of emotion — ridicule or contempt — into the
idea conveyed. This is one of the refinements of litera-
ture, pleasing according to the good taste with which it is
employed.

Example. — In the following sentence the writer's contempt is conveyed
simply by choosing words out of a more rudimentary and sordid sphere of
ideas than that in which the account would naturally move : " George III.,
who took a deep personal interest in the war, which, consciously or uncon-
sciously, he felt to be the test of his schemes and the trial of his power,
set his agents running over Europe to buy soldiers from anybody who had
men to sell""1

This matter has already been discussed to some extent under the Key of
Words; see above, p. 104.

1 Life of Onookool Chunder Mookerjee.

2 Henry Cabot Lodge, in Scribner's Magazine, April, 1898, p. 387.

CHAPTER VI.

POETIC DICTION AND ITS INTERACTIONS WITH
PROSE.

In our discussion of prose diction we have had in mind
merely a form of expression. Its antithesis, then, as confined
correspondingly to form of expression, is not poetry, but verse.
Poetry is more than an antithesis to prose ; it includes not
only form but material, mood, and thought. To this compre-
hensive term poetry it is hard to get an exact antithesis ; the
nearest, perhaps, is matter-of-fact, that is, practical knowledge
or instruction, as distinguished from thought idealized by
fancy and subjective feeling.

Between prose and poetry, then, there is a tract of common
ground, left over after verse has taken up as much of the anti-
thesis as it can. On this tract there is tendency to incursion
from both sides : prose occupying it in greater or less degree
as its occasion becomes more like that of poetry ; poetry occu-
pying it in the peculiarities of word and phrase by which both
it and prose are vitalized. The result is, that while in the
two kinds of discourse the bulk of usage remains identical,
any access of poetic feeling in either shows itself in those ways
of expression which we name distinctively poetic diction.1

1 " Prose is distinct from Poetry as the offspring is distinct from the mother.
Their nature is one, but their functions apart. Both Poetry and Prose are children
of ' Music' Both retain the virtue of their origin, and share in the family patri-
mony. By the detachment of Prose, Poetry has gained increased elevation through
limitation to her highest and truest province. Poetry has retained, not all the
Music, but only its mightiest department, the Music of the heart. The mind also
h;is its Music, and that branch has fallen to the lot of Prose. So the music of Prose
is that which chimes with Reason, the music of Poetry that which harmonizes with
hope and fear, with love and aversion, with aspiration and awe. Yet Poetry and

139

140 DICTION.

Poetic diction is in part dictated by, or rather blends artis-
tically with, the exactions of poetic metre, which latter subject
will be discussed in the next chapter. Its principle, however,
is more fundamental than this : it goes down to the mood, the
feeling, that underlies expression, and that makes diction and
metre alike its medium of utterance.

What Poetic Diction is. — The motive of poetic diction is
reducible to a single principle : spiritual exaltation. As poetry
is the language of emotion and imagination, its verbal pecul-
iarities answer to the spontaneous endeavor to make utterance
more effective, in impressiveness or picturesqueness. In a
word, poetic diction is heightened language, — the result in
words of the inspiration that controls the poet's mind. Or
to express it according to the more scientific conception
required by a text-book of rhetoric, it is language so em-
ployed and ordered as to connote fervid feeling and imagina-
tive beauty.1

This elevated diction interacts with the diction of prose ;
that is to say, when prose has an emotional or imaginative
occasion it takes on very much the same peculiarities of
expression, but with a difference, due to its different pre-
dominance of motive. In prose the motive is practical and
didactic, with spiritual exaltation as the helper.2 In poetry
the motive is fervid and ideal, with matter-of-fact as the
helper. Naturally, then, in poetry itself the poetic diction is
freer and bolder, has more the abandon of existing for its own
sake ; while in any kind of prose, however poetic, the diction

Prose are not estranged, they are still akin, and neither is quite shut out from
the heritage of the other. Poetry abhors unreason, and Prose cherishes right
feeling." — Earle, English Prose, p. 330.

1 A poet's sense of the office of poetic diction is indicated in this couplet from
Tennyson's poem, The Wreck : —

" The word of the Poet by whom the deeps of the world are stirr'd,
The music that robes it in language beneath and beyond the word."

2 See this illustrated above, p. 1 1 1 .

POETIC DICTION— INTERACTIONS WITH PROSE. 141

must always be subdued enough to allow the practical motive
to show through.

I. POETIC TRAITS IN POETRY AND IN PROSE.

In recounting these traits, we follow the stages of divergence
from the language of common life, beginning with the charac-
teristics least removed from didactic prose.

Tendency to Brevity or Concentration. — In poetry and prose
alike, poetry only slightly predominating, the first impulse of
heightened feeling is to hasten to the point of the idea, with as
little impediment as possible. In order to this, the central
attack is made upon the symbolic words,1 with the object of
making these as light, as rapid, as little lengthy,2 as they will
bear, so that more distinction may be left for the words of
capital significance. Thus in the end this first impulse has to
do with movement; the vigor of its feeling infuses vigor into
the sequence of words.

i. Omission of Symbolics. — When articles, relatives, and
conjunctions can be spared they are freely omitted. Such
words, from their subordinate office, are necessarily unem-
phatic, and if used with scrupulous fulness tend to drag the
movement.

1 For the symbolic element of the language, see above, p. 117. — This means of
condensation is defined and illustrated below, p. 295.

2 Here a distinction must be made. Lengthiness in expression is not synonymous
with length ; nor does poetry shun long words or long constructions in themselves.
Take, for instance, this line from Shakespeare,

"The multitudinous seas incarnadine,"

and you feel no lack of poetic thrust in the long rolling words ; they help both metre
and picture. Take, on the other hand, the word " indubitably," and you feel that its
very movement is prosaic ; it would be hard to fit into a really poetic passage. The
relation it denotes is not important enough to require so many syllables for expres-
sion ; it uses up vocal force for nothing.

142 DICTION.

Examples.1 — I. Omission of article : " WhenAday was gone "; " Some
injury done toAsickle,Aflail, orAscythe " ; "Not fearing toil norAlength of
weary days." — 2. Omission of relative : " Even if I could speak of thingsA
thou canst not know of " ; " Exceeding was the loveAhe bare to him." —
3. Omission of conjunction : '• ButAsoon as Luke could stand."

The omission of the relative is less frequent in Wordsworth than in
some others ; nor does he make any omitted or condensed construction
violent. Compare with him some passages from Browning, with whom
the omission of the relative is so constant as to be a mannerism : —

" You have the sunrise now,Ajoins truth to truth,
Shoots life and substance into death and void,"

where the subject-relative is omitted ;

" Whence need to bravely disbelieveAreport
Through increased faith inAthingAreports belie,"

where the omission of articles and object-relative gives a decided impression
of forced concentration.

2. Abbreviation and Condensation. — This shows itself most
strikingly, perhaps, in the termination -ly of the adverb, which
is so frequent in poetry as to be almost the rule. But in
many other words also, poetry chooses shorter forms both
by discarding terminations and by squeezing out interior syl-
lables. Such abbreviation, being so generally necessitated by
metrical exigencies, sounds affected and trifling in prose.

Examples. — 1. From Michael: "The hills which he so oft had
climbed " ; " When Michael, telling o yer his years " ; " Ere yet the boy had
put on boy's attire "; " Though naught was left undone "; " 'Twere better
to be dumb than to talk thus."

2. From the general poetic vocabulary: scarce for scarcely; list for
listen; marge for margin; vale for valley; mount for mountain; e'er and
ne'er for ever and never ; aye for ever in the sense of always ; save for
except.

The relation of such words to prose is defined above, p. 1 10.

1 In order more clearly to ascertain the natural stages of poetic diction I have
studied Wordsworth's poem Michael, a poem standing in style and subject at only
a moderate remove from prose ; and it is by citations from this work that the first
two main traits above given are exemplified,

POETIC DICTION— INTERACTIONS WITH PROSE. 143

3. The Possessive. — This form, which in prose is mostly
confined to actual possession and to some few idiomatic
expressions (e.g. the law's delay ; for brevity's sake ; a year's
leave of absence), is more freely employed in poetry for the
condensation it effects. It should be noted here, however,
that there is at present a newspaper tendency to enlarge the
use of the possessive (as e.g. "London's hospitality"; free-
dom's opportunity) ; — a tendency to be watched, as it is not
yet good literary usage, except for an obvious emergency.

Examples. — From Michael : " by the streamlet's edge " ; " with mor-
row's dawn " ; " his Heart and his Heart's joy." All these would sound
somewhat affected in ordinary prose.

4. Compounding of Words. — Both in poetry and in prose,
poetry taking the lead, there is a tendency to use the resources
of the language in the interests of concentration by making
compounds for an occasion. Carlyle was one of the greatest
innovators of the century in this liberty of prose usage ; a
freedom of his which brought against him the charge of Ger-
manizing, though as matter of fact he was merely reviving an
old usage of the language.1

Such coinage of compounds answers in audacity to the
intensity of the thought, being more marked as the passion
or picturesqueness is greater.

Examples. — 1. From Michael, which, it will be remembered, is
pitched in a rather low key : " Surviving comrade of uncounted hours " ;
" Did overbrow large space beneath " ; " Brings hope with it, and forward-
looking thoughts " ; " Turned to their cleanly supper-board" ; " With Luke
that evening thitherward he walked." All these sound nearly as natural
to prose as to poetry ; especially compounds in un-, as unwisdom, unfaith,
unbosom, unman. See above, p. 67.

2. From poems of intenser sentiment. Shakespeare : " the always-
wind-obeying deep." Tennyson : " love-loyal to the least wish of the king " ;
"the peak haze-hidden." Swinburne: "Ye starry-headed heights"; "In

1 See Earle, English Prose, p. 205.

144 DICTION.

the far-floated standard of the spring." Browning : " the cloud-cup's brim ";
" yet human at the red-ripe of the heart."

From Carlyle's prose, passim : "Quivering agitation of death-terror" \
"grim fire-eyed Defiance"; "London and its smoke-tumult" \ "a heavy-
laden, high-aspiring, and surely much-suffering man " ; " vacant air-castles
and dim-melting ghosts and shadows " ; " the fever-fire of ambition is too
painfully extinguished (but not cured) in the frost-bath of Poverty"; "if
not Religion, and a devout Christian heart, yet Orthodoxy, and a cleanly
Shovel-hatted look."

II.

Partiality to Unworn Words and Forms. — A second tendency,
decidedly more potent in poetry than in prose, is to seek
words that are unencumbered with everyday and common-
place associations, so that they may be more free to take the
pure and undivided connotations required by the present
work. Poetry is thus always searching for unworn material
of expression ; it shuns conventional and stock phrases. This
manifests itself in three main ways.

i. Archaisms. — An archaism (from the Greek apx<uo<;, " old,"
" ancient ") is a word, or more commonly a form, older than
current use, an expression that, though intelligible, is no longer
employed in ordinary unemotional discourse.

The charm of a poetic archaism resides in the fact that it
is, as it were, so old as to have become new again ; that is, it
has passed on from its former everyday and vulgar associa-
tions into a cleaner air, while in its survival it retains the
savor and dignity of history ; well adapted, therefore, to
serious poetry, which is quite generally set in a key somewhat
more archaic than the usage of the present day.

Examples of Archaisms. — i. Archaic words and forms from Mi-
chael. "Exceeding was the love he bare to him"; "Albeit of a stern
unbending mind "; " We have, thou knowesi, another kinsman." This last
example, representing the pronoun of the second person singular and the
old verbal forms in -est and -eth, gives an archaism very common, more the
rule than the exception, in serious poetry.

POETIC DICTION— INTERACTIONS WITH PROSE. 145

2. The archaic savor of a whole poem, as dealing with an ancient sub-
ject and sentiment : —

" There was a dwelling of kings ere the world was waxen old ;
Dukes were the door-wards there, and the roofs were thatched with gold ;
Earls were the wrights that wrought it, and silver nailed its doors ;
Earls' wives were the weaving-women, queens' daughters strewed its floors,
And the masters of its song-craft were the mightiest men that cast
The sails of the storm of battle adown the bickering blast." 1

The relation of archaic language to ordinary prose work, both on its
wholesome and its untoward sides, has been discussed above ; see p. 6j.

2. Non-Colloquialisms. — The same search for the unworn
leads poetry, and prose as its occasion becomes more elevated,
to shun colloquial expressions.

A colloquialism belongs to ordinary states of mind ; it is
unsought and unvalued expression, language as it were in
undress. Poetry belongs to the region of the ideal, of the
spirit ; it seeks, therefore, an unsullied, unmaterialized medium
of expression.

Note. — This averseness to colloquial language shows itself in two
ways : —

i. In an effort to find unhackneyed words for prosaic things; as in
the following instances from Michael : " At the church-door they made a
gathering for him " (instead of took up a collection); " where he grew won-
drous rich " (prose : made his fortune) ; " wrought at the sheep-fold " (the
common preterite is worked ; this example is at once an archaism and a
non-colloquialism).

2. In the avoidance, or very sparing use, of conversational abbrevia-
tions; as don't, can't, I'll, he'll, and the like. Poetry has grown more
particular in this respect in the last century. It is noteworthy that the
abbreviation 't is for it is, which is less used in ordinary prose and conver-
sation than // 'j, is correspondingly more natural as a poetic abbreviation.

For the relation of these colloquial abbreviations to written diction in
general, see above, p. 127.

3. Influence of Poetic Setting. — It is not to be inferred from
what is here said that the language of ordinary conversation

l William Morris, Sigurd the Volsung, opening.

146 DICTION.

is barred out from poetic uses ; the verse of Kipling and
Eugene Field, of Will Carleton and James Whitcomb Riley
would at once disprove this and dictate a broader standard.
In humorous and folk-verse free use is made of colloquialisms,
dialect, even slang ; but in this case the poetic setting —
metre, rhyme, and general spirit of the poem — supplies the
imaginative atmosphere and removes the language in fitting
degree from its ordinary associations.

Illustration. — In the following stanza from Kipling there is the
cockney dialect, the colloquial swing, and the bad grammar; but it is
poetry — of a sort — it is poetic feeling kept up by the lilt of the verse : —

" We 're most of us liars, we 're 'arf of us thieves, an' the rest are as rank as can be,
But once in a while we can finish in style (which I 'ope it won't 'appen to me).
But it makes you think better o' you an' your friends, an' the work you may 'ave

to do,
When you think o' the sinkin' Victorier^s Jollies — soldier an' sailor too !
Now there isn't no room for to say you don't know — they 'ave proved it plain

and true —
That whether it 's Widow, or whether it 's ship, Victorier's work is to do,
An' they done it, the Jollies — 'Er Majesty's Jollies — soldier an' sailor too ! " *

III.

Language employed for its Picturing Power. — The language
of poetry is the language of imagery ; that is, there is a con-
stant effort to employ words and phrasing that shall have as
much as possible of the vividness and concreteness of an
object of sense. Prose obeys the same tendency, though in
the two the motives differ. In poetry the significance of the
imagery itself — its beauty, its connotation of ideal truths —
is a motive ; and accordingly the imagery becomes the sub-
stance of the thought, and is worked out seemingly for its own
sake.2 In prose the motive is lucidity and concentration:

1 Kipling, The Seven Seas, p. 155.

2 " Imagery is sometimes not the mere alien apparelling of a thought, and of a
nature to be detached from the thought, but is the coefficient that, being superadded to
something else, absolutely makes the thought." — De Quincey, Essay on Language.

dto
age.

POETIC DICTION— INTERACTIONS WITH PROSE. 147

the picture is a shorthand illuminator of a thought that in
literal language is felt to lack life. Picturing language is to
prose like an illustrative figure ; to poetry a natural attire. In
prose composition, therefore, such language, valuable as it is,
must be kept soberly and judiciously in hand; it may easily
clog and overload the expression and produce the effect of
display.

The following are the chief aspects of this use of
language :

i. Epithet. — By far the most common way is to crowd the
picture into single words, called epithets. An epithet may be
defined as a descriptive adjective l ; that is to say, giving an
attribute not essential to the understanding of its principal,
but (as the derivation of the word, from kvi and riOrifii, " to add
to," implies) added extra, in order to supply some descriptive
or coloring feature. An epithet, from its brevity, is an instru-
ment alike of imagery and vigor ; it involves in most cases the
implicatory figure called Trope.2

The following kinds of epithets may here be defined and
exemplified : —

i. By far the most numerous and natural are the epithets
that answer most closely to the type defined above ; we may
name them decorative epithets, epithets that add a coloring, a
descriptive trait, to their principal. Distinctively a poetic
feature, such epithets, from their lack of metrical suggestion,
are also the most available picturing agency in poetic prose.3

Illustrations. — i. The following stanza, from Keats's Lamia, will
show by the words here italicized how rich poetic literature often is in
epithet, and how much of the coloring is added thereby : —

" Upon a time, before the faery broods
Drove Nymph and Satyr from the prosperous woods,

1 An epithet may also take the form of name or sobriquet, added for connotation
of character; see p. 91, above.

2 See above, p. 87.

8 Or prose of the imaginative type, concerning which see below, p. 168.

148 DICTION.

Before King Oberon's bright diadem,

Sceptre, and mantle, clasp'd with dewy gem,

Frighted away the Dryads and the Fauns

From rushes green, and brakes, and cowslifd lawns,

The ever-smitten Hermes empty left

His golden throne, bent warm on amorous theft :

From high Olympus had he stolen light,

On this side of Jove's clouds, to escape the sight

Of his great summoner, and made retreat

Into a forest on the shores of Crete."

2. The following examples, from prose works, make us aware that we
are reading prose of an exceptional kind, prose akin, in sentiment and
feeling, to poetry. " With bossy beaten work of mountain chains " ;
" mighty masses of leaden rock and heathy moor ; " are from Ruskin.1
" They roamed the daisied fields together," is from George Eliot.

3. Such epithets may sometimes, by a license very rare in prose, be used
without their substantives ; thus, Milton has " the dank" " the dry" for
water and land. Sometimes also an epithet . may be used substantively
and be modified by a second epithet ; as, " the breezy blue," " the sheeted
dead," " the dead vast of the night." Some stock expressions similar to
these last examples have crept into prose, as, " Our honored dead," " the
great departed."

2. A rather more artificial .kind of epithets, and therefore
more restricted to poetry, may be named essential epithets,
epithets that merely express some quality already involved in
the noun. Being so obvious, this quality might go unthought
of if it were not thus brought out and made the character-
giving quality of the passage. In the same class with these,
as obeying a similar principle, may be mentioned conventional
epithets, epithets employed as a constant accompaniment, a
kind of trade-mark, of their nouns, without special reference
to their fitness on any given occasion. This use is found in
old and ballad poetry.

Examples. — 1. Of Essential Epithet: "Wet waves," "white milk,"
"green pastures," " the sharp sword." " And he commanded them to make
all sit down by companies upon the green grass," Mark vi. 39, is instanced

1 The longer passage in which these epithets occur is quoted as an illustration of
the Imaginative Type of Prose, on p. 168, below.

POETIC DICTION— INTERACTIONS WITH PROSE. 149

as the language of an eye-witness, to whom the essential feature of green-
ness was a vividly remembered characteristic of the scene. The essential
epithet in " bright sword " is given on p. in, above, as a means of making
picturesqueness a part of prose expression.

2. Of Conventional Epithet. In Homer Achilles is always "swift-
footed," when he is sitting in council or sleeping, as well as when he
is running. So, too, we have " bright-eyed Athene," " white-armed Juno ";
as also in the early ballads and in poetry modeled on their style, " the
doughty Douglas," " the bold Sir Bedivere " ; adjective and noun making one
term indivisible for the purpose and tone of the poem in which they occur.

3. The kind of epithet most used in prose, and used rather
for striking brevity than for picturesqueness, may be called the
phrasal ox packed epithet ; an epithet that suggests what would
require a phrase or sentence to express in full. It is a ^.. u
valued means of packing language as full of implied thought
as it will bear.

Examples. — In the following couplet,

" Even copious Dryden wanted, or forgot
The last and greatest art, the art to blot,"

the epithet copious is equivalent to " though he was copious," implying that
in his great wealth of expression Dryden could have afforded to strike out
the poorer passages, being able to supply their place with better. — In the
couplet,

" Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main," —

the full sense implied in the epithet unbending is that the corn had not
time, as she passed over it so swiftly, to bend beneath her. The deco-
rative epithet swift, in the first line, has no such concentration of mean-
ing. — The following, from Keats,

" So the two brothers and their murder' d man
Rode past fair Florence,"

derives its bold concentration from the fact that, as the context shows,
the epithet means " whom they were about to murder," or, " murdered in
anticipation."

2. The Adjective and Adverb in Prose. — Closely parallel to
the poetic use of epithets for their picturing power is the use of

ISO DICTION.

modifiers, the adjective and the adverb, in prose, for fulness
of meaning and for roundedness of phrase. This is a feature
of diction that needs the careful guardianship of sound taste,
because while it has great capabilities it may be pushed into
disagreeable effects equally great. It is for this reason that
the useful but too sweeping advice has been given, " Never
use two adjectives where one will do ; never use an adjective
at all where a noun will do." Instead of taking up with this
undiscriminatingly, it will be better to ascertain the good and
the bad of the case.

On the one hand, it is the adjective and the adverb, most
largely, that supply warmth, color, depth to the assertion ;
• ' c^e austere outline of noun and verb they add as it were a
wealth and amplitude of meaning which makes the sentence
a thing of animation and emotion. Without these the style
may easily become bald.1

On the other hand, these intensifying elements are the
easiest to lavish ; and when used in profusion they may
become a source of weakness, not aiding the assertion but
swamping it with qualifications 2 ; besides, too, they may make

1 An example of a bald style is given above, p. 136. — See Earle, English Prose,
pp. 177-182, from which the following sentences may be quoted : " To write without
adjectives may be a counsel of safety, but it never can lead to high excellence. The
utmost that can be attained without adjectives is correctness of outline ; there is no
warmth, no colour, no emotion. . . . To allot adjectives rightly requires a good knowl-
edge of the subject united with sound taste and literary judgment. Used under these
conditions, they are among the smartest and most effective of the elements of lan-
guage, and together with a richness of meaning they convey a warmth of feeling and
a colour to the imagination which exceeds the power of either verb, substantive, or
adverb."

2 For the obverse of this, see under Condensation for Vigor, p. 295, below. The
following is suggestive here : " Lord North . . . took occasion on the next day to
express his assurance that Sir George had spoken in warmth. ' No,' said Savile, ' I
spoke what I thought last night, and I think the same this morning. Honorable
members have betrayed their trust. I will add no epithets, because epithets only
weaken. I will not say they have betrayed their country corruptly, flagitiously, and
scandalously ; but I do say they have betrayed their country, and 1 stand here to
receive the punishment for having said so." — Trevelyan, Early History of Charles
James Fox, p. 199.

POETIC DICTION— INTERACTIONS WITH PROSE. 1.5 1

the diction cheap and turgid by betraying on the part of the
writer a crude bent for rounding out every phrase by balanc-
ing words. This latter fault is especially noticeable when there
is a manneristic tendency to use adjectives in pairs or groups.

Examples of Congested Adjectives. — The following is quoted by
Professor Earle from Swinburne, " rather as a sample than as a model " :
" The wildest, the roughest, the crudest offspring of literary impulse work-
ing blindly on the passionate elements of excitable ignorance was never
more formless, more incoherent, more defective in the structure, than this
voluminous abortion of deliberate intelligence and conscientious culture."1
— The following, from an article by the present writer, illustrates the disa-
greeable effect of obeying a tendency to run adjectives into groups : " It
will be the permanent distinction of this tranquil island home [Farringford]
that from it radiated uplifting and upbuilding influences, to keep the mind
of a restless and doubting age true to the purest and sweetest ideals." This
ought to have been more carefully revised before it was sent to the editor.

3. Word-Painting. — This means of poetic picturesqueness
is much the same as the one already denned, employing
epithet indeed as its chief resource; but to this it adds on
occasion the picturing power of the verb and the noun, the
descriptive beauty of imagery skilfully elaborated, and the
harmonious flow of phrase. Thus language is employed as a
painter employs colors and shading and lights, in the interests
of vivid realization ; striving thus for what Milton names as a
necessary quality of poetry, that it should be " sensuous."2

Example. — The following, from Tennyson's Lotos Eaters, is a good
representative of that early period of his poetic career when he was under-
going his apprenticeship in the picturing power of words : —

" ' Courage ! ' he said, and pointed toward the land,
1 This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon.'
In the afternoon they came unto a land
In which it seemed always afternoon.
All round the coast the languid air did swoon,
Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.
Full-faced above the valley stood the moon ;

1 Earle, English Prose, p. 179.

2 " Simple, sensuous, impassioned," is Milton's specification of qualities.

152 DICTION.

And like a downward smoke, the slender stream
Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.

A land of streams ! some, like a downward smoke,

Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go ;

And some thro' wavering lights and shadows broke,

Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below.

They saw the gleaming river seaward flow

From the inner land : far off, three mountain-tops,

Three silent pinnacles of aged snow,

Stood sunset-flush'd : and, dew'd with showery drops,

Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse."

In these stanzas we notice : (i) Epithet, — " languid air," " weary dream,"
"slumbrous sheet," " sunset-flush'd," "shadowy pine"; (2) Picturing
verbs, — " will roll us," " did swoon," " to fall and pause and fall," " up-
clomb " ; (3) The flow and sound of words, — " In which it seemed always
afternoon," " slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn," " rolling a slumbrous
sheet of foam"; (4) All the pictures, of the heavy air, of the slender
waterfalls, of the moonlit scenery, are elaborately wrought.

4. Polarized Words. — This name may be applied to words
used in senses strikingly different from their current accepta-
tion. Two ways of polarizing words may be mentioned : one,
not uncommon even in poetic prose, by using words out of
their speech-part-ship — nouns as verbs, epithets coined from
nouns, and the like ; — another, too daring to sound natural
anywhere but in poetry, by forcing the sense back toward the
original derivation,1 securing thus a kind of esoteric meaning
appreciable only to those whose sense of words is educat
and fine.

Examples. — 1. Of Polarized Speech-part-ship: "the daisied fields"
(see p. 143, above) ; " the zoned iris of the earth." From Lowell's Legend

of Brittany :

11 on it rushed and streamed
And wantoned in its might "...
" Meet atmosphere to bosom that rich chant "...

" which sank abyssed
In the warm music cloud."

1 " It is doubtless the privilege of a poet to force a word back along the line of its
own development, in the direction of its etymology or of primitive usage." — S. H.
Butcher.

POETIC DICTION— INTERACTIONS WITH PROSE. 153

2. Of Polarized Usage. From Tennyson's Love and Duty : —

" Live — yet live —
Shall sharpest pathos blight us, knowing all
Life needs for life is possible to will —
Live happy."

Here " pathos " is used in the old Greek sense of suffering. From Tenny-
son's Gareth and Lynette : —

" not that tall felon there
Whom thou by sorcery or unhappiness
Or some device, hast foully overthrown," —

where " unhappiness " is used in the sense of unlucky hap or accident.
From Bryant's The Past : —

" They have not perished — no !
Kind words, remembered voices once so sweet,

Smiles, radiant long ago,
And features, the great soul's apparent seat."

Here the word " apparent " has not its usual sense of seeming ; it means
rather making appear or be evident.

An example from Charles Lamb will show how estranging this forcing
of usage is in prose. " While childhood, and while dreams, reducing \i.e.
bringing back] childhood, shall be left, imagination shall not have spread
her holy wings totally to fly the earth." This cannot be quoted as a model
even from Lamb ; its justification in him, if it has any, is due to that " self-
pleasing quaintness " which was his avowed idiosyncrasy.

IV.

Language employed for Qualities of Sound. — Just as, with ref-
erence to the sense of sight, the language of poetry is distinc-
tively the language of imagery, so, with reference to the sense
of hearing, poetry is more canorous, more susceptible to the
musical capabilities of language, than is prose. This is funda-
mental. The determining forms of poetry, metre and rhyme,
are themselves based on articulate sounds ordered and recur-
ring ; but also, far beyond these exactions of form, poetry
evolves a diction wherein to great degree the subtle relations
of sound are employed as in a musical instrument, making a
fit setting for the beauty and harmony of the idea. Prose
also, with its utilitarian motive, has its ways of obeying the

154 DICTION.

same dictates of sound, though the results are more hidden. In
fact, the difference between prose and poetic diction as regards
sound is so truly a mere difference of degree rather than principle
that their interactions come into plain view at every point.

Each of the aspects here given, then, will be examined in its
application first to poetry and then to prose ; that is to say,
first in the aesthetic sense which inspires it, then in the prac-
tical claim which makes it universal.

i. Euphonious Words and Combinations. — The craving for
euphonious sounds manifests itself positively in poetry, in the
treatment of proper names, and in the choice, where alterna-
tive forms of a word are available, of the smoother form. A
striking instance of this is seen in the fact that countries have
their poetic as well as their prosaic names, — names adopted
largely for their romantic and unworn associations, but also
indicating by their form that considerations of euphony were
prominent.

Examples. — " Albion " for England, " Erin " or " the Emerald Isle "
for Ireland, " Helvetia" for Switzerland, " Caledonia" for Scotland, " Co-
lumbia" for America.

The poets Milton and Tennyson, both consummate artists in sound, are
especially worthy of study for their euphonious management of word and
phrase. Tennyson, in the epilogue to the Idylls of the King, changes the
name Malory to Malleor, probably the better to satisfy his ear. Probably
the same motive led him to discard the old name Nimue, which at first he
adopted from the legends, and to substitute the name Vivien. Milton's
ear was very sensitive to delicacies of sound ; he has " ammiral " for
admiral, " Chersoness " for Chersonese, " Oreb " for Horeb, " Chemos "
for Chemosh, and many more. His lists of geographical names read like
a study in musical articulation ; note, for instance, the following : —

" From Arachosia, from Candaor east,
And Margiana, to the Hyrcanian cliffs
Of Caucasus, and dark Iberian dales ;
From Atropatia, and the neighboring plains
Of Adiabene, Media, and the south
Of Susiana, to Balsara's haven." 1

1 Milton, Paradise Regained, Book iii, 11. 316-321.

POETIC DICTION— INTERACTIONS WITH PROSE. 155

In prose, euphony is a more negative quality,1 being con-
cerned with keeping the diction clear from the jolts and
harshnesses which when present draw away the reader's atten-
tion from the thought to infelicities of form. Such infelicities
are inadvertent ; they have to be remedied, therefore, by con-
stantly subjecting the work to the test of reading aloud, or
better, by cultivating the habit of mentally hearing whatever
is written. It is thus that the ear justly becomes, in a very
important sense, the arbiter of style.2

Accordingly, a careful writer will be on his guard against
sounds hard to pronounce together or making a harsh combi-
nation. When for the sense a harsh-sounding word must be
adopted, special care should be devoted (unless for descriptive
effect it is advisable to continue the harshness) to relieving
the difficulty of articulation by the choice, of accompanying
words.

Examples. — i. As an illustration of the contrast between harsh and
euphonious language, compare the line,

" 'T was thou that smooth'd'st the rough rugg'd bed of pain,"

with these well-known and well-beloved lines of Wordsworth's: —

u Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean, and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man."

It would be useful to take note of the constant variation in consonant and
vowel sounds, and the ease of utterance.

2. A common clash is where the end of one word and the beginning
of the next have the same sound. In such common expression as " He

1 For the relation of this negative quality of Euphony to Beauty in Style, see
above, p. 38.

2 See under Spoken Diction, p. 119, above. — "Although it is true of the great
bulk of all prose writing that it is produced by a writer who writes in silence to be
perused by readers who read in silence, yet it is also true at the same time that it
contains a voice, and that the sound of it is essential to its quality and a chief ele-
nn-iit in its success. The reader not only sees, but consciously or unconsciously he
also li(-;irs ; and it is upon the latter sense that his perception of harmony and much
of li is pleasure are based." — Eaklh, English Prose, p. 314.

156 DICTION.

wished to go," " I should have liked to do it " there is a harshness of
sequence that a good ear is reluctant to tolerate. Of the line in In Memo-

riam, XL. 5,

" In such great offices as suit
The full-grown energies of heaven,"

Tennyson in later life remarked: " I hate that — I should not write so now
— I 'd almost rather sacrifice a meaning than let two s's come together."
If this is a somewhat exaggerated judgment, it at least shows Tennyson's
keenness of ear.

3. Some words, in themselves harsh, cannot well be avoided ; as, inex-
tricable, pledged, adjudged, fifthly ; but when combinations of such words
occur the harshness is intolerable. Try, for instance, such combinations
as stretched through; high-arched church ; an inexplicable expression ; an
inner indication. — A similar harshness is incurred in a series of unac-
cented short syllables ; as in primarily, peremptorily, cursorily, lowlily,
stdtelily. — The adverbial termination in -ly needs watching, especially
where two adverbs come together ; as, " On the contrary, it is only com-
paratively recently that it was distinctly seen or apprehended." 1 v

2. Sounds in Sequence and Repetition. — Here we reach the
ways of ordering sounds which, as they almost necessarily
connote the imaginative sense peculiar to poetry, are in prose
suitable only to certain impressive and exceptional effects.
The chief of these are alliteration, assonance, and rhyme.

Alliteration is the name given to a near recurrence of
the same initial sound. It is a very spontaneous device in
English ; the early poetry of the language was all alliterative,
and no doubt the tendency lives in the genius of the literature.
In later verse, however, it is kept unobtrusive, as a half-hidden
music in the structure of the verse.

Example. — It may be interesting to compare a passage of the old
alliterative verse with the refined alliterative expression of our day. The
following is from The Vision of Piers the Plowman : —

" In a corner jeson* whan soit was the jonne,
I s/iope me in j/*roudes* as I a s/iepe were,
In /zabite as an //eremite- vn^oly of workes,
Went wyde in this world- wondres to here."

1 Example cited from Earle, English Prose, p. 318.

POETIC DICTION— INTERACTIONS WITH PROSE. 157

It will be seen here that a new alliterative scheme is adopted for each line,
and that the alliteration in each line is centered on the important words
on each side of the caesura. With this compare the following stanza, very
elaborate but not so obviously artificial, from Swinburne : —

" When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces,
The wother of wonths in weadow or plain

Fills the shadows and windy places
With /isp of /eaves and ripple of rain ;

And the £rown bright nightingale amorous

Is half assuaged for Itylus

For the Thracian ships and the /oreign /aces,
The tongueless vigil, and all the pain."

Here the second line quite recalls the old alliterative principle, and the
fourth line gracefully combines two schemes ; but otherwise the alliterative
tune is irregular.

Assonance is the name given to a recurrence of the same
vowel sound, irrespective of the consonantal setting in which
it is found. It is not used as a prescribed principle in modern
verse-building ; though the delicate echoing, as well as varia-
tion, of vowel sounds has much to do with the felt but unde-
fined music of the diction.

Illustration. — An overt assonance is not wholly agreeable to the ear
because it sounds so like a crude attempt at rhyme ; as,

" The groves of Blarney
They are so charmz'ng."

And yet the fact that the predominating vowel scheme gives a distinct col-
oring to the passage makes the observance of vowel sounds an important
artistic element. We can easily detect this in the following, which the
assumptive author is represented to have

" Read, mouthing out his hollow oes and aes,
Deep-chested music, and to this result."

What he read was Tennyson's early poem Morte D'Arthur, the first two
if which already set the pace in strong vowel sounds : —

" So all day long the noise of battle rolPd
Among the mountains by the winter sea."

158 DICTION.

Rhyme is the recurrence of similar sounds at the ends oi
lines or at corresponding parts of lines. It is the prevailing
principle, in modern poetry, of couplet and stanza structure.
It is sometimes used, as a kind of word-play, in the body of
the verse, as well as at the end ; in which case it becomes an
adjunct rather of sense than of form.

Illustration. — Rhyme in poetry is so universal that it needs no
exemplification here. The way rhyme may be introduced into the body of
a verse may be illustrated by the following, from Browning : —

" How sad and bad and mad it was —
But then, how it was sweet ! "

or the following, from Swinburne : —

" All the reefs and islands, all the lawns and highlands, clothed with light,
Laugh for love's sake in their sleep outside : but here the night speaks, blasting
Day with silent speech and scorn of all things known from depth to height."

In Tennyson's

" Airy, fairy Lilian,
Flitting, fairy Lilian,"

the alliteration and word-play become so prominent as to suggest artifici-
ality ; perhaps the poet's idea is to describe by the character of the lan-
guage a butterfly lightness of character.

In Prose Diction. — In prose these recurrent sounds may
produce quite opposite effects, according to the skill or lack
of skill evinced.

When a rhyming word slips in unnoticed, or when the same
word or sound keeps recurring, it is a blemish from its obvious
heedlessness, and by as much as it makes the reader aware of
defective form it detracts from the full operation of the thought.
Accordingly, as a matter of practical euphony, the writer needs
to be on his guard against repetition

of the same word,

of the same sound,

of the same sort or size of word ;

POETIC DICTION— INTERACTIONS WITH PROSE. 159

this last referring to excessive use of words of like length or
of similar terminations. Words in -ation are liable thus to
make jingles with each other ; and when a number of them
are necessary to the sense it is useful to see to it that
they do not fall at related pauses or in parallel grammatical
construction.

Examples of Inadvertent Rhyme. — "As I gazed upon the mighty
work, I said to myself, 'Now Athens is indeed secure ; come Greek or
come Persian, nothing will subdue her.'' " * The effect of this is enhanced
by the fact that the rhymed words both fall in pause. " To lose oneself
in its swift and splendid action is to keep company with brave human
souls, to deal with life at first hand, to act without the paralysis of too
much analysis, to suffer without weak and cowardly complainings, to die
as men ought to die — in resolute endeavor to do the best with conditions
as they are." — " There is an ordinance of nature at which men of genius are
perpetually fretting, but which does more good than many laws of the uni-
verse that they praise ; it is, that ordinary women ordinarily prefer ordinary
men."

But while on the one hand prose has to steer itself clear of
such heedless lapses, and to be too serious for mere word-play
and trifling, on the other hand it may, on occasion, employ
these devices of sound, alliteration and rhyme, in a strictly
utilitarian way. In the impression of a thought descriptively,
or in an aphoristic summary of truth, these adjuncts of sound
become a natural aid to attention and memory. It is for this
reason that we find them freely used in maxims, proverbs, and
folk-phrases ; they are like an application of poetic diction to
common life.

Examples. — In the following, from Thackeray, the alliteration greatly
intensifies the description, as well as its connotation of contempt : " What
muscle would not grow flaccid in such a life — a life that was never strung
up to any action — an endless Capua without any campaign — all/iddling,
and /lowers, and /easting, and /lattery, and /oily ? " 2 . In the following

1 For the relation of these recurrent sounds to Beauty, see Euphony, on p. 38,
above. 2 Thackeray, Four Georges: George IV.

160 DICTION.

the touches of rhyme serve much the same purpose : " But the faultless
frame remains frigid and rigid: form without soul, a body still lacking
the breath of life. "a — " Whether it is a tale he is telling, or a drama with
its jwift, jharp dialogue, or an essay rambling and ambling skilfully to its
unseen end, the style is always the style of a man who has learnt how to
make words bend to his bidding."2 — " With bell and bellow he could be
heard last winter vociferating from a conspicuous street corner." 3 The
following illustrates the use of rhyme in a folk-phrase : "A very large fall
of timber, consisting of about one thousand oaks, has been cut this spring
in the Holt forest : one-fifth of which, it is said, belongs to the grantee,
Lord Stawell. He lays claim also to the lop and top ; but the poor of the
parishes of Binsted and Frinsham, Bentley, and Kingsley assert that it
belongs to them, and assembling in a riotous manner, have actually taken
it all away."4

3. Onomatopoetic Words and Phrasing. — In poetry and prose
alike, as the vivid realization of things quickens the descriptive
impulse, much of the language is employed as a vocal echo to
the sense ; though poetry is more sensitive and flexible in
this respect than prose. This characteristic, attained partly
through the rhythm and partly through the articulate sounds,
is the secret of much of its power in word-painting, already
described. The subject of the harmony of sound and sense
is too broad and detailed to allow more than an outline here.

Very natural in poetry, first, is the impulse to make vocal
sounds reproduce the movements and sounds of nature.

Examples. — The classic example from Virgil, " Quadrupedante putrem
sonitu quatit ungula campum," imitative of a horse's gallop, will occur to
every one; as also Pope's Alexandrine, "Which like the wounded snake,
drags its slow length along." In the following, from Tennyson, the conso-
nant combinations str and si, which must be pronounced somewhat slowly,
are employed to denote slowness and reluctance of movement : —

"So strode he back slow to the wounded king." 5

1 Lord Lytton in Fortnightly Review, Vol. xli, p. 718.

2 Matthews, Aspects of Fiction, p. 136.

3 The Youth's Companion.

4 White's Natural History of Selborne, p. 27.
, 5 Tennyson, Morte D 'Arthur.

POETIC DICTION— INTERACTIONS WITH PROSE. 161

Quickness and life are expressed in the following by a change of rhythm
from an iambus to a tribrach : —

" Then would he whistle rapid as any lark." 1

The following is a striking imitation of a heavy sound echoing among
rocks : —

" He spoke ; and, high above, I heard them blast
The steep slate-quarry, and the great echo flap
And buffet round the hills, from bluff to bluff P 2

Poetry may be equally felicitous, secondly, in making com-
binations of vocal sounds portray states of mind, states of
nature, or general characters of combined events. This has
its large application in the whole key or color-scheme of a
poem, to an extent which makes the poet's art the most deli-
cate in the world ; here we can only indicate the beginning of
it as seen in single lines.

Examples. — In the following, a general desolation, both of mind and
weather, is indicated by " the harsh sibilants in the third line, and the inten-
tionally hard alliteration and utter want of rhythm in the last line " : —

" He is not here ; but far away
The noise of life begins again,
And ghastly thro' the drizzling rain
On the bald street breaks the blank day." 3

A line without rhythm is similarly employed by Milton to portray the swift
and utter rout of the rebellious angels : —

u headlong themselves they threw
Down from the verge of heaven : eternal wrath
Burnt after them to the bottomless lit." 4

In prose this answer of sound to sense shows itself in the
choice of descriptive words,5 and in the spontaneously rapid

1 Tennyson, Gareth and Lynette.

2 lb., The Golden Year.

3 lb., In Memoriam, vn. 3. See Genunc;, Tennyson's In Memoriam : a Study,
p. 109.

4 Milton, Paradise Lost, Book vi, 11. 864-866.

or the relation of this to Harmony, see above, p. yj.

162 DICTION.

or slow movement of descriptive passages. In passages not
predominantly descriptive, too, the occasional use of such a
word as a " beacon-word " 1 does much to enliven the style and
keep imagination active. A large proportion of the vocabu-
lary is at disposal for such effects, in the hands of one who
realizes vividly; and these onomatopoetic words are at once
the most striking and the most precise.2

Illustrations. — Such words as buzz, whizz, whack, plump, pell-mell,
hurly-burly, hullabaloo, will occur to the reader as representative of multi-
tudes of such words. The difference between these descriptive words and
others may be seen in alternative expressions of the same idea. Compare,
for instance, " The water was boiling, and threw up a great fountain from
its midst," with "The spray was hissing hot, and a huge jet of water burst
up from its midst." Notice how much more vividness there is in " He
plunged into the river," than in " He threw himself into the river " ; in " The
horse rushed galloping down the road," and " The horse came quickly."

Observe what descriptive power the italicized words have in the follow-
ing: "The hurricane had come by night, and with one fell swash made an
irretrievable sop of everything."3 In the following sentences can be felt
the movement as well as the descriptive words: "Long before the sound
of the report can roll up the river, the whole pent-up life and energy which
has been held in leash, as it were, for the last six minutes, is loose, and
breaks away with a bound and a dash which he who has felt it will re-
member for his life, but the like of which, will he ever feel again ? The
starting-ropes drop from the coxswain's hands, the oars flash into the
water, and gleam on the feather, the spray flies from them, and the boats
leap forward." 4

1 For beacon-words, and the use of Alienisms as such, see above, p. 60.

2 " Such is the nature of language that, if the best possible word be chosen, it will
often prove to be one of this description. This choice of the best word means pre-
cision, and hence the effort to be precise will often lead to excellence of another and
very different kind." — De Mille, Elements of Rhetoric, p. 273. — "Words are
available for something which is more than knowledge. Words afford a more deli-
cious music than the chords of any instrument ; they are susceptible of richer colors
than any painter's palette ; and that they should be used merely for the transpor-
tation of intelligence, as a wheelbarrow carries brick, is not enough. The highest
aspect of literature assimilates it to painting and music. Beyond and above all the
domain of use lies beauty, and to aim at this makes literature an art." — Higginson,
Atlantic Essays, p. 28.

3 Cable, Old Creole Days: Posson Jone\

4 Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxford, Chap. xiii.

POETIC DICTION— INTERACTIONS WITH PROSE. 163

II. THE APPROACHES OF PROSE TO POETRY.

It has been pointed out that in the endeavor to maintain
a properly elevated tone of discourse prose will better bear
poetic touches than poetry will bear prosaism.1 We may carry
this a step farther and say that prose itself, as it becomes more
artistic, is continually trying to escape from prosaism, to take
on elements of lightness, buoyancy, life, interest, to be more
than mere sermo pedestris, discourse plodding along on foot.
There is evident in it, in all but the most commonplace duties,
a longing for something of the winged grace which is the
native movement of poetry.

This is not a mere instinct of workmanship, or idle desire
to make diction. No genuine distinction of style rises in this
way. Its roots are deeper, in the intense identification of the
soul with the subject. As soon as men are concerned with a
subject beyond mere reportage or scientific information they
become excited, a new glow and warmth enters their speech ;
and as this excitement rises from the same causes that give
vitality and technic to poetry — namely, fervid emotion and
realizing imagination — the effects are analogous in the dic-
tion ; that is, according to its exciting occasion, the diction of
prose approaches to the diction of poetry.2

Three general types of prose diction may thus be distin-
guished, according to their progressive relation to poetry ; to
some one of which types any literary work in prose is to be
more or less predominantly referred. These three types, it
will be seen, approach poetry by the way of the three funda-
mental qualities of style, clearness, force, and beauty ; arising

1 See above, p. 137. Distinguish between prose and prosaism.

2 " Poetry is the greatest of all sources for inspiring prose with new vitality.

born ol conversation, but it is enlivened and invigorated by poetry. Only
then the nutritive elements, which prose draws from poetry, must for the most part
ested and assimilated, they must not remain in their elemental state of man!
(est poetry, they must be transformed into prose."— Earle, English Prost} p. 161.

164 DICTION.

indeed from much the same impulse that makes each of these
in turn the controlling quality of the diction.

The Intellectual Type. — So we may name the first type, as
addressing itself supremely to the understanding, with its
dominant requirements of clear thinking and ordered presen-
tation, and holding the language of emotion or imagination
secondary. It is the fundamental type of prose ; given here
not so much to illustrate in itself the approach of prose to
poetry as to define the neutral matter-of-fact plane of expres-
sion from which such approach is made, and to complete the
classification of types.

In the following passage, from Southey's Life of Nelson, the task of the
writer is simply to give information, in the plainest language, of an event.
No effort is made to excite interest, or to vivify by poetic devices; the
interest is taken for granted, and the author need not display his feelings
in order to prove the importance or beauty of the scene.

" It had been part of Nelson's prayer that the British fleet might be
distinguished by humanity in the victory he expected. Setting an example
himself, he twice gave orders to cease firing upon the Redoubtable, suppos-
ing that she had struck, because her great guns were silent ; for, as she
carried no flag, there was no means of instantly ascertaining the fact. From
this ship, which he had thus twice spared, he received his death. A ball
fired from her mizzen-top, which in the then situation of the two vessels
was not more than fifteen yards from that part of the deck where he was
standing, struck the epaulette on his left shoulder, about a quarter after
one, just in the heat of action. He fell upon his face, on the spot which
was covered with his poor secretary's blood. Hardy, who was a few steps
from him, turning round, saw three men raising him up. • They have done
for me at last, Hardy ! ' said he. ' I hope not ! ' cried Hardy. ' Yes,' he
replied, 'my back-bone is shot through.'

" Yet even now, not for a moment losing his presence of mind, he
observed as they were carrying him down the ladder that the tiller-ropes,
which had been shot away, were not yet replaced, and ordered that new
ones should be rove immediately. Then, that he might not be seen by the

POETIC DICTION— INTERACTIONS WITH PROSE. 165

crew, he took out his handkerchief and covered his face and his stars.
Had he but concealed these badges of honor from the enemy, England
perhaps would not have had cause to receive with sorrow the news of the
battle of Trafalgar. The cockpit was crowded with wounded and dying
men, over whose bodies he was with some difficulty conveyed, and laid
upon a pallet in the midshipmen's berth. It was soon perceived, upon ex-
amination, that the wound was mortal. This, however, was concealed from
all except Captain Hardy, the chaplain, and the medical attendants. He
himself being certain, from the sensation in his back and the gush of
blood he felt momently within his breast, that no human care could
avail him, insisted that the surgeon should leave him, and attend to those
to whom ho might be useful; 'for,' said he, 'you can do nothing for me.'

"All that could be done was to fan him with paper, and frequently
give him lemonade to alleviate his intense thirst. He was in great pain,
and expressed much anxiety for the event of the action, which now began
to declare itself. As often as a ship struck, the crew of the Victory hur-
raed, and at every hurra a visible expression of joy gleamed in the eyes
and marked the countenance of the dying hero. . . .

" Nelson now desired to be turned upon his right side, and said : ' I wish
I had not left the deck, for I shall soon be gone.' Death was indeed
rapidly approaching. . . . His articulation now became difficult, but he was
distinctly heard to say : ' Thank God, I have done my duty ! ' These words
he repeatedly pronounced, and they were the last wTords which he uttered.
He expired at thirty minutes after four, three hours and a quarter after he
had received his wound."1

In all this passage there is no touch either of poetic mood or poetic dic-
tion. The only figure is one mild metonymy in " From this ship, which
he had thus twice spared, he received his death," a figure as appropriate to
prose as to poetry. The prose vocabulary, and the fulness of the symbolic
and connective element may be felt from the sentence, "Yet even now,
not for a moment losing his presence of mind, he observed as they were
carrying him down the ladder, that the tiller-ropes, which had been shot
away, were not yet replaced, and ordered that new ones should be rove
immediately." The only sentence which approaches a sentiment adapted
to poetry still keeps the prose movement : " Had he but concealed these
badges of honor from the enemy, England perhaps would not have had
cause to receive with sorrow the news of the battle of Trafalgar."

1 Southey, Life of Nelson, Chap. ix.

166 DICTION.

II.

The Impassioned Type. — This type of prose, which, as the
name indicates, is the outcome of strong and exalted emotion,
is most purely represented in oratory ; we might call it orator-
ical prose. The kind of verse that approaches most nearly
to it is dramatic blank verse.

The subject-matter that most naturally evolves this type
of diction is that which deals with experience, character, con-
duct ; the unchanging yet always vital truths with which are
connected the joys and sorrows, the hopes and fears, the affec-
tions and interests, the ideals and duties, of universal human
life.

The approach which this type of prose makes to poetic dic-
tion is shown first of all in the concentrative elements : in the
tendency to shun labored connections and relations, and in
the use of weighty words which say much in little space. Sec-
ondly, there is a general heightening of language : in the use
of words which, while not exclusively poetical, are equally at
home in poetry and prose ; in the tendency to impressive
imagery ; and in the spontaneous use of the emotional figures
of speech. Thirdly, the setting is distinctly rhythmical :
manifest in the use of sonorous words, in the balancing of
phrases and clauses, and in the stately roll of the sentence.

The following, from Daniel Webster's Oration on the Bunker Hill Monu-
ment, will exemplify the general elevated tone of impassioned discourse : —

"Venerable men ! you have come down to us from a former genera-
tion. Heaven has bounteously lengthened out your lives, that you might
behold this joyous day. You are now where you stood fifty years ago,
this very hour, with your brothers and your neighbors, shoulder to shoulder,
in the strife for your country. Behold, how altered ! The same heavens
are indeed over your heads ; the same ocean rolls at your feet ; but all else
how changed ! You hear now no roar of hostile cannon, you see no mixed
volumes of smoke and flame rising from burning Charlestown. The ground
strewed with the dead and the dying ; the impetuous charge ; the steady

POETIC DICTION— INTERACTIONS WITH PROSE. 167

and successful repulse ; the loud call to repeated assault ; the summoning
of all that is manly to repeated resistance ; a thousand bosoms freely and
fearlessly bared in an instant to whatever of terror there may be in wafand
death; — all these you have witnessed, but you witness them no more.
All is peace. The heights of yonder metropolis, its towrers and roofs, which
you then saw filled with wives and children and countrymen in distress and
terror, and looking with unutterable emotions for the issue of the combat,
have presented you to-day with the sight of its whole happy population,
come out to welcome and greet you with a universal jubilee. Yonder proud
ships, by a felicity of position appropriately lying at the foot of this mount,
and seeming fondly to cling around it, are not means of annoyance to you,
but your country's own means of distinction and defence. All is peace ;
and God has granted you this sight of your country's happiness, ere you
slumber in the grave. He has allowed you to behold and to partake the
reward of your patriotic toils; and he has allowed us, your sons and coun-
trymen, to meet you here, and in the name of the present generation, in the
name of your country, in the name of liberty, to thank you ! . . .

" But ah ! Him ! the first great martyr in this great cause ! Him ! the
premature victim of his own self-devoting heart ! Him ! the head of our
civil councils, and the destined leader of our military bands, whom nothing
brought hither but the unquenchable fire of his own spirit ! Him ! cut off
by Providence in the hour of overwhelming anxiety and thick gloom ; fall-
ing ere he saw the star of his country rise ; pouring out his generous blood
like water, before he knew whether it would fertilize a land of freedom or
of bondage ! — how shall I struggle with the emotions that stifle the utter-
ance of thy name ! Our poor work may perish ; but thine shall endure !
This monument may moulder away; the solid ground it rests upon may
sink down to a level with the sea ; but thy memory shall not fail ! Where-
soever among men a heart shall be found that beats to the transports of
patriotism and liberty, its aspirations shall be to claim kindred with thy
spirit! " — Webster' 's Great Speeches, p. 127.

Of the means of general heightening above mentioned we may here
point out a few : —

1. Words not exclusively poetical, but from the more exalted vocabu-
lary : venerable, bounteously, behold, witness, yonder metropolis, unutterable,
issue, combat, ere, slumber, martyr, gloom, stifle, utterance, endure, kindred.
The list might be greatly increased.

2. Emotional figures. — Exclamation: Behold, how altered ! and often ;
the whole tissue of the second paragraph is exclamatory. Interrogation :
how shall. I struggle with the emotions, etc. Apostrophe : the latter half of
the second paragraph.

168 DICTION.

3. Rhythmical words and constructions : venerable men ; former gen-
eration ; roar of hostile cannon ; heights of yonder metropolis; your coun-
try's own means of distinction and defence ; ere you slumber in the grave ;
this monument may moulder away ; and many others, as also constant bal-
ancing of elements, as, the head of our civil councils, and the destined leader
of our military bands.

III.

The Imaginative Type. — This type of prose diction has been
called "the special and opportune art of the modern world." 1
It is the kind of style that shapes itself, with more or less
artistic fitness, when the writer deals with an imaginative
theme, and shapes his conceptions in the fancy rather than in
the strictness of logic. Success in it requires a special apti-
tude, not unlike the poet's ; if this is lacking, or only studied
and second-hand, the style either tends to flatted notes and
lapses from sound taste or degenerates into fine writing.2

In this kind of diction language is used somewhat as a
musical instrument, to stimulate and gratify the reader's imagi-
nation by means of euphonic sound and picturing imagery.
Its field is naturally descriptive : we might not unfitly call it
descriptive prose. Poetic resources, both of structure and
vocabulary, are freely drawn upon. Especially noticeable are
epithet and word-painting ; also alliteration and other means
of pointing and balancing language are prominent. The ten-
dency to rhythm is still more marked than in the impassioned
type ; that is, its movement approaches more to the measured
rhythm of poetry, while never going far enough in this direc-
tion to impair the integrity of the prose tissue.

The following, from Ruskin's Stones of Venice, carries this type of prose
to the very verge of poetry : —

" We know that gentians grow on the Alps, and olives on the Apen-
nines ; but we do not enough conceive for ourselves that variegated mosaic
of the world's surface which a bird sees in its migration, that difference

1 Pater, Appreciations, p. 7. 2 See above, p. 71.

POETIC DICTION— INTERACTIONS WITH PROSE. 169

between the district of the gentian and of the olive which the stork and
the swallow see far off, as they lean upon the sirocco wind. Let us, for a
moment, try to raise ourselves even above the level of their flight, and
imagine the Mediterranean lying beneath us like an irregular lake, and all
its ancient promontories sleeping in the sun : here and there an angry spot
of thunder, a grey stain of storm, moving upon the burning field ; and here
and there a fixed wreath of white volcano smoke, surrounded by its circle
of ashes ; but for the most part a great peacefulness of light, Syria and
Greece, Italy and Spain, laid like pieces of a golden pavement into the sea-
blue, chased, as we stoop nearer to them, with bossy beaten work of moun-
tain chains, and glowing softly with terraced gardens, and flowers heavy
with frankincense, mixed among masses of laurel, and orange and plumy
palm, that abate with their grey green shadows the burning of the marble
rocks, and of the ledges of porphyry sloping under lucent sand. Then let
us pass farther towards the north, until we see the orient colors change
gradually into a vast belt of rainy green, where the pastures of Switzerland,
and poplar valleys of France, and dark forests of the Danube and Car-
pathians stretch from the mouths of the Loire to those of the Volga, seen
through clefts in grey swirls of rain-cloud and flaky veils of the mist of the
brooks, spreading low along the pasture lands : and then, farther north
still, to see the earth heave into mighty masses of leaden rock and heathy
moor, bordering with a broad waste of gloomy purple that belt of field and
wood, and splintering into irregular and grisly islands amidst the northern
seas, beaten by storm and chilled by ice-drift, and tormented by furious
pulses of contending tide, until the roots of the last forests fail from among
the hill ravines, and the hunger of the north wind bites their peaks into
barrenness ; and at last, the wall of ice, durable like iron, sets, deathlike,
its white teeth against us out of the polar twilight." — Ruskin, Stones of
Venice, Vol. ii, p. 172.

In this masterly piece of imaginative description, we see how, as soon
as the author gets his point of view and plan determined, the descriptive
part (beginning with "and all its ancient promontories ") takes on the pic-
turing language and not a little of the movement of poetry. Let us notice
a few of these poetic elements : —

1. Epithets. — Decorative: sirocco wind ; ancient promontories; golden
pavement ; terraced gardens ; plumy palm ; lucent sand ; orient colors ;
rainy green ; heathy moor ; grisly islands ; into the sea-blue.

2. Word-painting: sleeping in the sun; a great peacefulness of light ;
glowing softly with terraced gardens ; the hunger of the north wind; grey
swirls of rain-cloud ; flaky veils of the mist of the brooks; tormented by
furious pulses.

170 DICTION.

3. Alliteration : a grey stain of storm ; £ossy beaten work ; wixed awong
wasses of laurel, and orange and /lumy /-aim; wighty masses of leaden
rock ; £ites their peaks into barrenness. No less masterly than these repe-
titions of sounds are the delicately varied combinations of sounds, both
vowel and consonantal.

4. Rhythm encroaching on metre : —

And all its ancient promontories sleeping in the sun.
Here and there an angry spot of thunder.
With bossy beaten work of mountain chains.
Spreading low along the pasture lands.
By furious pulses of contending tide.1

Summary. — The intense identification of the writer's soul
with the subject-matter and its occasion, which produces these
effects, fervid or imaginative, wherein prose diction approaches
to the diction of poetry, requires, in greater degree according
to the loftiness of the occasion, to be supplemented by a taste
made sound and chaste through conversance with the best
literary ways, and by a skill great enough to put knowledge
into self-justifying forms of art. If these are lacking the
composition, while it may be luxuriant, is like the run-wild
luxuriance of the tropics : it evinces merely power or emo-
tion undirected. On the other hand, poetic effects cannot be
manufactured, in cold blood, by any manipulation of word
and phrase and figure. The two, emotion and art, must be
thoroughly fused together.

1 The subject of prose rhythm, as related to the rhythm of poetry, is discussed in
the next chapter, pp. 210-220.

CHAPTER VII.
RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE.

Both poetry and prose, the latter no less imperatively than
the former, must have rhythm ; that is, a more or less even
and regular flow of syllables long and short, accented and
unaccented. In both the same principles of rhythm obtain,
and to an extent run parallel ; only, in poetry one more ele-
ment is operative than in prose, the element of measure or
systematic recurrence; wherefore the rhythm of poetry is
called metre, from the Greek word fxtrpov, "a measure."

Metre, this measured rhythm, is the basal and determining
principle of English verse. As such it is merely a conventional
law, evolved from the genius of the language, according to
which the elevated sweep of poetic diction is made orderly
and musical.1 It is, however, not the only active rhythmical
motive, nor does the introduction of it in any sense supplant
another element still more fundamental. Moving over the
same field there is also an unmeasured, constantly varied,
exceedingly flexible grouping of syllables, which may be
called the rhythm of the phrase. This latter, interwoven with
the metrical, works in poetry to impart a graceful variety to
its uniformity ; while, moving unconventionally by itself, it
constitutes that sonority and largeness of phrase which we
call prose rhythm.

1 " Verse may be rhythmical ; it may be merely alliterative ; it may, like the
French, depend wholly on the (quasi) regular recurrence of the rhyme ; or, like the
Hebrew, it may consist in the strangely fanciful device of repeating the same idea.
. not matter on what principle the law is based, so it be a law." — Stevenson,
On Some Technical Elements of Style in Literattcre, Works (Thistle edition),
Vol. xxii, p. 250.

171

172 DICTION.

It is the design of the present chapter to define these two
kinds of rhythm, as they appear by themselves, and as they
work together.

I. ELEMENTS OF POETIC RHYTHM.

In its progressive organization of articulate sounds metre
observes according to its own system the grammatical analogy
of the phrase, the clause, and the sentence : it groups syllables
into feet, feet into verses or lines, and lines into stanzas.
Farther than this we need not follow it here ; as indeed
farther than this, and in some types from the verse onward,
poetry coincides in organism with prose.

The Metrical Unit : the Foot. — Every kind of measure must
have a unit of measurement. The unitary procedure from which
poetic metre starts is the grouping of syllables into twos or
threes, each group being called a foot. Thus the standard
types of metre take their rise, the kinds of feet being distin-
guished from one another by their various arrangements of
accented and unaccented syllables.

Note. — The names and definitions of the feet are derived from classi-
cal prosody, which estimates syllables not by accent but by quantity, as
short, long, and neutral. Quantity also plays an appreciable part in Eng-
lish syllabication, enough perhaps to justify defining in terms of quantity,
as we shall do here ; though the prosody of our language is more accentual
than quantitative, more like speech, less like a kind of sing-song or
chant.

The very different genius of our prosody from that of Latin and Greek
can best be illustrated from musical rhythm. Take for instance the open-
ing verse of Longfellow's Evangeline, which poem is written to imitate the
dactylic hexameter ; and the natural musical measure into which it falls is

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE.

173

not at all the dactylic long and two shorts ( w w), but a galloping rhythm

in triple time : —

/ /

/ y*i

This

the

for -

est pri -

ma - val, the

* ,N

J /

mur -

ing

pines

and the

hem - locks.

The real quantitative dactyl, such measure as is represented in

" Arma virumque cano, Trojae qui primus ab oris,"

is expressed rather in the rhythm of the Andante to Schubert's posthumous
quartette : —

t=t

of-

*td

Here the beat is stately and chant-like ; flowing, not rattling. Another
celebrated example of this solemn dactylic measure in music is the Alle-
gretto of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony.1

In all kinds of English verse a definite scheme and type of
metre exists ; that is, a unit of measure is traceable, according
to which the verse flows in an ordered tune. The generally
accepted system of feet, however, suffers to a degree from the
fact that it is derived not from the native English but from
the classic languages : it does not fit all English cases without
some awkwardness, or at least accommodation. This is more
apparent as the verse grows in intensity from recitative to
lyrical, and thus takes on more sweep and freedom of move-
ment. The modulations thus occasioned will come up for
discussion later ; meanwhile we need to determine the standard
unmodified rhythms.

1 See the remarks on this movement, and on the dactylic measure in general in
LANIER, Science of English Verse, p. 226.

174 DICTION.

The Classical or Recitative Measures. — For verse of the more
subdued tone, designed to be read or recited, the classical
system of prosody is convenient and sufficiently lucid. This
system builds feet by grouping syllables in double or triple
combinations of longs and shorts ; the quantity, which in the
classical languages is intrinsic, being estimated in English
partly by the accent and partly by the natural stress in
reading.

Note. — The conventional way of marking the quantity of syllables is
by the signs ordinarily used to mark the pronunciation of vowels : a macron
over the vowel (-) indicating the long, a breve (^), the short. A syl-
lable of indifferent or neutral value may be represented by the two signs
combined (±/).

Dissyllabic Feet. — The feet formed from groups of two are
more stable and distinct, more capable of maintaining their indi-
viduality without blending with one another, than the trisyl-
labic ; an indication, perhaps, that they answer more deeply to
the rhythmical genius of the language.

i. The Iambic foot, or Iambus, is a short and a long ( w _).
Being by far the most common, it may be regarded as the
standard English measure. All the serious and sustained types
of poetry — the epic, the drama, the ode, the elegy — are written
in iambic metre ; no other foot indeed is so well adapted to
be the measure of all work.

Illustration. — Our language, being so largely monosyllabic, and with
a wealth of unaccented symbolic words, falls into dissyllabic rhythm by the
very frequency of accentual change ; while the tendency to drive the stress
to the end of a phrase makes the standard dissyllabic rhythm iambic instead
of trochaic. This may be seen in the following from Shakespeare : —

Nor is it less suited to the dignity and sweep of the polysyllable ; as in
" The mul titud|inous seas | incar|n5dlne." |

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE. 175

2. The Trochaic foot, or Trochee, is a long and a short
(_ w). Its effect is lighter and more tripping than that of
the iambic ; it is used accordingly for verse of a more rapid
movement and less strenuous sentiment ; occasional trochaic
feet are used also as relief to the austerity and monotony of
the iambic.

Examples. — i. For the general movement and effect of the trochaic
the well-known poem of Hiawatha may be quoted : —

or, for a longer line and somewhat weightier effect, Browning's poem One
Word More : —

2. In any passage of blank verse not many lines will pass without occa-
sional trochaic feet slipping in among the iambics ; as,

Here the first and fourth feet are trochaic ; and they relieve, while they do
not impair, the general iambic flow of the verse.

3. The Spondaic foot, or Spondee, is two long ( ). It

cannot well be used in English as a prevailing or determining
measure, as this would require that every syllable have a stress.
Its use is for occasional offset to iambic or trochaic feet.

Examples. — In the following stanza from Tennyson we detect the
spondaic feet from the natural stress of the word in reading and its weight
in the sense. It will be noted that the spondees give an added weight, just
as the trochee gives an effect of lightness : —

Here the words " clear harp " and " dead selves " must be read as spondees ;
while the words " Of their " are so nearly trochaic, at least, that the second

176 DICTION.

syllable must be shortened, though in this case the syllable (5/" also is short
or neutral.

No distinction is commonly made for an example like this last cited one,
where both syllables of a dissyllabic foot are short. It is only a transitional
foot blending with the succeeding spondee to make a double foot (^ w

Trisyllabic Feet. — The feet formed from groups of three are
more rapid and impetuous than the dissyllabic ; more ready
also to interchange with one another and leave the reader
uncertain of the prevailing tune. This will come up for
further discussion later.

4. The Dactylig foot, or Dactyl, is one long and two
shorts (_ w w). It is, among the trisyllabic measures, much
what the trochee is among the dissyllabic : tripping and
nimble, hard to adapt to a sustained flight of dignified senti-
ment without liberal admixture of spondaic. It is in the use
of this measure that the essential discordance between the
accentual and the quantitative is most apparent ; its triple-
time beat in English being very different in effect from its
stately march in Latin and Greek, in which languages it is
the standard epic measure.

Examples. — Browning's The Lost Leader, which is prevailingly
dactylic, will illustrate both the dactylic swing and the effect of an occa-
sional spondee for variety : —

Here the two spondees of the third line, as also the cut-off endings, do
much to steady a measure which otherwise might become too galloping.
Dactyl is in fact best adapted for transient effects.

The difference between the accentual and the quantitative swing has
been illustrated musically in the note on p. 172.

5. The Anapestic foot, or Anapest, is two shorts and a
long (w \j _), the reverse of the dactyl. Its general effect

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE. 177

also is the reverse ; it being adapted to a pensive or medita-
tive sentiment where the movement is quiet and subdued. It
is seldom used pure for any. great length ; it is varied and to
some extent relieved by frequent admixture of iambic, espe-
cially at the beginnings and ends of lines ; it often blends its
tune also with the dactylic.

Examples. — The following is a pure Anapestic line : —

" At the clSse | of the day, | when the ham|let is still." |

Browning's poem, Through the Metidja to Abd-el-Kadr, adopts the ana-
pestic tune, doubtless for its rocking imitative movement, but intersperses
frequent lines of varied measure : —

The anapestic, mixed freely with iambic, is the measure of Coleridge's
Christabel, which he regarded as an innovation in metre : —

" Tis the mid | die of night | by the cas|tle cklck." |

6. The Amphibrach (Greek a\x.$i and /3pa^u?, short on both
sides), is a short, a long, and a short (w __ w), as in the word
remember. This is an unstable measure ; an ellipsis of a sylla-
ble, or the placing of the pause, may easily change its tune to
dactylic or anapestic.

Examples. — The following line is quoted as a somewhat rare example
of amphibrach without ellipsis at the end : —

" There came to | th<5 beach X | poor exile | 5f Erin."

alternate lines of" the stanza are elliptical : —

" The dew on | Ins thin robe | lay heavy | Snd chill." v^/ \

178 DICTION.

The second line of the following couplet, from Browning's How they
Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix, exemplifies how an extra initial
syllable may change the movement from amphibrach to anapestic : —

7. The Amphimacer (Greek d/x,<£i and fxaKpos, long on both
sides), is a long, a short, and a long (_w _), as in the word
undismayed. It is seldom used in English verse except as an
occasional intermediate foot.

Note. — The convenience of being familiar with these last two kinds of
foot will be especially apparent when we come to note the rhythm of the
phrase, and the rhythm of prose, wherein a much greater variety of measure
prevails. See below, p. 213.

II.

The Metrical Clause : the Verse. — Corresponding in rhythm
to the clause or sentence-member in grammar is the grouping
of metrical feet which makes up the verse or line ; which latter
accordingly receives a technical name from the number of feet
it contains. Thus a verse one foot long is monometer ; two
feet, dimeter ; three feet, trimeter ; four feet, tetrameter ; five
feet, pentameter ; six feet, hexameter ; seven feet, heptameter.

These clusters of feet, it will be remembered, are metrical
clauses, not grammatical ; they may or may not correspond to
pauses in the sense ; indeed, it is essential that the two be kept
independent in movement. This is made especially imperative
by the fact that where lines are rhymed the rhyme itself consti-
tutes a metrical punctuation, emphasizing the bounds of the
clause ; if now for any length the attempt is made to end every
line with a sense-pause, the result is monotony and dulness. The
ideal of the two kinds of clausal structure is that while the
foot and line exist as a constant pattern, the grammatical flow
of the sentence shall course in and out, limpid, spontaneous,
free.

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE. 179

Note. — A verse and a line are the same thing, and the two names are
practically interchangeable. If we used them strictly, we should regard the
terms as naming the object from different points of view. As a group of
feet making up a metrical clause, it is a verse ; from its derivation it means
the turning, that is, of the written or chanted current ; and as such is anti-
thetic to pro\r\sa, straightforward ; see above, p. 108. As a constituent
part of a stanza, or as a row of words not considered rhythmically, it is
called a line. Of the two, the term verse is the more technical.

The use of the term verse as equivalent to stanza (as verse of a hymn),
as also the use of it to designate a prose paragraph (except in the Bible),
should be avoided as provincial.

r o

Some Standard Types of Verse. — As the above-given names
of the metres explain themselves, and as the kinds can be
recognized by the easy process of counting feet, there is no
need of more detailed description here, further than to men-
tion the few that are so much more prevalent or celebrated
than the rest as to require ready acquaintance.

The most prevalent — it may be regarded as the standard
English line for serious poetry — is the Iambic Pentameter,
of which the formula is | w_| ^ _ | w_| w_| w_|.
This is the measure of Heroic Verse,1 like Pope's translation
of the Iliad ; of Elegiac Verse, like Gray's Elegy ; and of Epic
and Dramatic Blank Verse. In all these except the dramatic
the pentameter scheme is observed with much strictness ; in
verse of dramatic type, however, where the freedom of oral
speech is an appreciable influence, the verse is frequently
limbered by an extra short syllable at the end.

Example. — i. Modern epic blank verse may be exemplified from one
of the noblest works in that measure, Tennyson's Holy Grail : —

" And all at once, as there we sat, we heard
A cracking and a riving of the roofs,
And rending, and a blast, and overhead
Thunder, and in the thunder was a cry.

1 Some use the term heroic to cover all iambic pentameter, blank verse with the
rest ; here, in order to make a more clearly articulated classification, it is confined to
the rhymed heroics of the Pope and Dryden type.

180 DICTION.

And in the blast there smote along the hall

A beam of light seven times more clear than day :

And down the long beam stole the Holy Grail

All over cover'd with a luminous cloud,

And none might see who bare it, and it past." 1

2. The extra syllable of dramatic verse may be exemplified from Shakes-
peare's Henry VIII.

u He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one ;
Exceeding wise, fair-spoken and persuading :
Lofty and sour to them that loved him not,
But to those men that sought him, sweet as summer.
And though he were unsatisfied in getting,
Which was a sin, yet in bestowing, madam,
He was most princely." 2

In this passage every line but one has the extra syllable ; it should be said,
however, that in this particular play the liberty is used beyond the common.

Next to this in prevalence, for long poems, is the Iambic
Tetrameter (|w_|w _|w _|u _|); a favorite
vehicle with the older poets, from Herrick to Swift, for moral-
izing and meditative verse ; adopted also for satire, by Butler
in his Hudibras. It is a comparatively easy measure where
the poetic feeling is only moderately intense ; hence much
used for the occasional verse of prose writers.

It has more lightness, though a less dignified sweep, than
the pentameter ; and it was for these qualities that, relieved
by an occasional verse in trimeter, it was adopted by Scott
for his narrative romantic poems, The Lay of the Last Min-
strel, Marmion, and the Lady of the Lake.

The iambic tetrameter, alternated with trimeter, is the so-
called Ballad Measure. Sometimes the two alternating lines
are printed in one, making a line fourteen syllables long, tech-
nically called a fourteener. This is the measure of Chapman's
translation of Homer.

1 Tennyson, The Holy Grail, 11. 182-190.

2 Shakespeare, Henry VIII, Act iv, Scene 2.

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE. 181

Examples. — The following, from Butler's Hudibras, will illustrate the
old writers' use of iambic tetrameter : —

" He that is valiant and dares fight,
Though drubbed, can lose no honour by 't .
Honour 's a lease for lives to come,
And cannot be extended from
The legal tenant : 'T is a chattel
Not to be forfeited in battle.
If he that in the field is slain
Be in the bed of honour lain,
He that is beaten may be said
To lie in honour's truckle-bed."

The following, from Scott's Lady of the Lake, will illustrate its use for
narrative : —

" With that he shook the gather'd heath,

And spread his plaid upon the wreath ;

And the brave foemen, side by side,

Lay peaceful down like brothers tried,

And slept until the dawning beam

Purpled the mountain and the stream."

The following, from Chevy-Chace, will illustrate the ballad measure, as
put in stanza : —

" God prosper long our noble king,
Our lives and safetyes all ;
A woeful hunting once there did
In Chevy-Chace befall.

To drive the deere with hound and home,

Erie Percy took his way ;
The child may rue that is unborne,

The hunting of that day."

The following, from Chapman's Iliad, will illustrate the movement of
tourteeners : —

" He said ; and such a murmur rose, as on a lofty shore
The waves make, when the south wind comes, and tumbles them before
Against a rock, grown near the strand which diversely beset
Is never free, but, here and there, with varied uproars beat."

In trochaic metre the tetrameter has gained celebrity as the
measure of Longfellow's Hiawatha. It is not well adapted,
however, for serious work ; the fatal ease with which it may

182 DICTION.

be reeled off, also, precludes its artistic repute. Its use in the
case of Hiawatha was probably intended as a suggestion of
•crude aboriginal rhythm. — A much more frequent use of it
is the stanza form technically called 8s and 7s, in which the
alternate lines are one syllable short. Tennyson, in his
Locksley Hall, has reduced this stanza to a couplet, each
line fifteen syllables long ; the pause generally after the fourth
foot, but with liberty to vary.

Examples. — 1. Longfellow's Hiawatha is the most prominent, almost
the only example, of pure trochaic tetrameter in serious verse : —

" Out of childhood into manhood
Now had grown my Hiawatha,
Skilled in all the craft of hunters,
Learned in all the lore of old men,
In all youthful sports and pastimes,
In all manly arts and labors."

The following will illustrate its capacity for parody : —

" But he left them in a hurry,
Left them in a mighty hurry,
Stating that he would not stand it,
Stating in emphatic language
What he 'd be before he 'd stand it." 1

2. The following couplet from Locksley Hall will illustrate, in the first
line, the liberty of variation of pause obtained by printing this measure
as 1 5s : —

" Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest,
Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the west."

To print the first four feet as a line, separating noun and adjective, would
here be intolerable.

Of hexameter measure two kinds may be mentioned, not so
much from their frequency as from their celebrity.

The Alexandrine verse is an iambic line six feet long,
with the cassural pause 2 after the third foot (I w_ | w _ | w _ II

1 Lewis Carroll, Hiawatha' 's Photographing.

2 For the cssural pause, see below, p. 202.

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE. 183

\j j \j | v | )• It is employed with the heroic line as an

occasional pause-verse or conclusion of a period ; but it is too
heavy, in English, to be the staple metre of a sustained poem.

Examples. — It has been employed, however, by Drayton in his Poly-
olbion, but not with the effect of demonstrating its fitness.

Pope's line in criticism of the Alexandrine may be quoted as an example
of it, though the heaviness of the verse is intentionally exaggerated by
onomatopoeia : —

" A needless Alexandrine ends the song,
Which, like the wounded snake, drags its slow length along."

The Dactylic Hexameter, widely familiar as the measure of
Longfellow's Evangeline, is an imitation of the Latin and Greek

epic verse (|_ww|_ww |_ww |_uu|_uu | | ).

It has never become thoroughly acclimated in English, pro-
ducing as it does an entirely different effect from that of its
model, on account of the essential discordance between quan-
titative and accentual rhythm.

Note. — This difference has already been described and exemplified in
the note on p. 172, and on p. 176. The measure may be exemplified by a
quotation from Clough's Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich : —

" Sometimes I find myself dreaming at nights about arches and bridges, —
Sometimes I dream of a great invisible hand coming down, and
Dropping the great key-stone in the middle : there in my dreaming,
There I felt the great key-stone coming in, and through it
Feel the other part — all the other stones of the archway,
Joined into mine with a strange happy sense of completeness."

III.

The Metrical Sentence : the Stanza. — Just as the verse is
the metrical clause or sentence-member, so the stanza may
be regarded as the full metrical sentence or period ; being a
series of lines so grouped and related as to form a closed
circuit, and thus constitute a complete metrical idea. The

184 DICTION.

means by which the lines of a stanza are interrelated are the
rhyme, the fixed scheme of verse-lengths, and sometimes the
refrain, which last is a strain recurring at set intervals or at
the end of each stanza.

Typically, and in a majority of cases, the stanza limits
bound also the logical ; sometimes, however, the grammatical
sentence is run on to a series of stanzas, and sometimes the
full stop occurs within the stanza. This is but another way
of saying that the metrical sentence and the grammatical are
two distinct things.

Note. — Nearly all stanza types call for rhyme ; and the scheme of
rhyme is the most palpable means of bringing the metrical period round
full circuit. A good example, however, where the refrain takes the place
of rhyme may be found in the graceful five-lined stanza of Tennyson's
" Tears, idle Tears " : —

" Tears, idle tears, 1 know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more."

These words, " the days that are no more," the last three feet of the pen-
tameter, are the refrain that brings each stanza to its close; thus: —

u And thinking of the days that are no more."
" So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more."
" So sad, so strange, the days that are no more."
" O Death in Life, the days that are no more." 1

When a refrain is introduced parenthetically inside a stanza it is called a
burden.

Concessions to the Logical Period. — There are several forms
of poetry which to greater or less extent obey the influence
of the logical sentence or paragraph, which is massed accord-
ing to the sense ; and the metre is discarded or modified
accordingly.

1 Tennyson, The Princess, canto iv.

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE. 185

i. Most blank verse obeys metrical exactions only as far
as the line, and thereafter adopts the grammatical sentence
and paragraph in place of the metrical period or stanza. This
is natural in a kind of verse that deals mainly with continuous
thought and is nearest in feeling and office to prose ; the reci-
tative as distinguished from the lyric.

2. In heroic verse the couplet — the so-called heroic coup-
let— may be regarded as a rudimental stanza, which instead
of bringing the sense to a final close, or marking a stage in a
larger stanza, goes on to observe the massing and limits of
the grammatical paragraph. Its scheme of rhyme and its
insistence on line and couplet pauses unfit heroic verse for
continuous narrative ; while by the same means they make it
a fit vehicle for pointed and epigrammatic thought.

Examples. — Pope has carried this type of verse to its highest capability
in epigram ; the following is a specimen from his Essay on Man : —

" Go ! if your ancient, but ignoble blood
Has crept thro' scoundrels ever since the flood,
Go ! and pretend your family is young ;
Nor own, your fathers have been fools so long.
What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards ?
Alas ! not all the blood of all the Howards."

Since Pope's time the heroic couplet has introduced a greater propor-
tion of run-on lines, and has not so carefully sought balance and epigram-
matic point ; hence it has become much more limpid and sustained.

3. In the ode the stanza, following the current of the sense,
is irregular and continually varied in all three respects : length
of line, relation of rhymes, and length of the stanza itself.
The ode stanza is sometimes called a strophe. This char-
acteristic of the ode is evidently due to the desire for greater
freedom of movement than a set stanza form would permit ;
so the stanza becomes a lyrical paragraph.

Some of the Best-Known Stanza Forms. — Stanza forms are
so numerous and so self-interpretative that there is no practical

186 DICTION.

good in classifying them here. It will be sufficient to mention
a few, such as have become historic or ought to be recognized
by name.

Note. — The arrangement of rhymes in a stanza is generally indicated,
and will be indicated here, by letters of the alphabet ; a repetition of a letter
designating the rhyming syllables. Thus a a means two lines rhyming to
form a couplet ; a b a b means alternating rhymes ; abba, the first and
fourth rhyming, the second and third rhyming; and so on. Each new
rhyming syllable takes a new letter.

The Elegiac Stanza, well known as the stanza of Gray's
Elegy, is four lines of iambic pentameter rhymed alternately
{aba b). Its quiet and sedate movement fits it well for
pensive or meditative thought ; while the comparative brevity
of the metrical period suits well with a moderate pointed-
ness, or at least a clean-cut neatness rising from parsimony
of amplification.

The same line, with a modification of the rhyming scheme,
has become familiar through Fitzgerald's translation of the
Rubaiyat (quatrains) of Omar-Khayyam, in the stanza of
which the first, second, and fourth lines rhyme together, and
the third is left blank ; thus, a a - a. This peculiar arrange-
ment, wherein the fourth line returns to its rest after an excur-
sion, fits the quatrain well to be the embodiment of a single,
gracefully worded, finished thought.

Examples. — i. The neatness and finish both of single lines and of
whole stanzas may be exemplified by any stanza of Gray's Elegy ; it
these qualities that have made the lines so quotable : —

" Here rests his head upon the lap of earth
A youth, to fortune and to fame unknown :
Fair science frown'd not on his humble birth,
And melancholy mark'd him for her own."

2. The point and grace of the Fitzgerald quatrain may be seen in the
following, perhaps the most quoted stanza of the Rubaiyat : —

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE. 187

" I sent my Soul through the Invisible,
Some letter of that After-life to spell :
And by and by my Soul return' d to me,

And answer'd ' I Myself am Heav'n and Hell.' "

The prevailing Hymn Stanzas, which here call for brief
mention, though they are too numerous for extended specifica-
tion, are, for convenience in fitting melodies to them, marked
conventionally according to the number of syllables in the
lines ; thus, 7s, 10s, 8s and 7s, 6s and 4s ; these explain them-
selves. Older designations still current are : Long Metre
(L. M.), iambic tetrameter, rhymed either in couplets or alter-
nately; Common Metre (C. M.), identical with the ballad
measure, iambic tetrameter alternating with trimeter, and
usually having only the second and fourth lines rhymed ;
Short Metre (S. M.), iambic, the first, second and fourth lines
trimeter, the third tetrameter, the rhymes alternate ; and
Hallelujah Metre (H. M.), a six-lined stanza, iambic, consisting
of four lines trimeter alternately rhymed, and a couplet tetram-
eter rhymed in half lines, these rhymes sometimes inverted.

All these stanza forms are suitable only for short, indepen-
dent poems. Tennyson, in his In Memoriam, has conceived
the idea of making a lyric sequence of such poems ; that is,
of making them, while still semi-detached, deal with a con-
tinuous sentiment. To this end he has taken the long metre
stanza (iambic tetrameter) and inverted the rhymes (from
a b a b to a b b a) ; with the effect that, as the suggestion of
a balanced musical tune is broken up, the sustained or recita-
tive character is more free to emerge.

Note. — It can be felt how much more suggestive of a musical setting,
and this, not merely from the sentiment, but from the grouping of rhymes,
is such a stanza as this from Keble : —

" Abide with me from morn till eve,
For without thee I cannot live ;
Abide with me when night is nigh,
For without thee 1 dare not die," —

188 DICTION.

than is this from In Memoriam :

" Our little systems have their day ;

They have their day and cease to be :
They are but broken lights of thee,
And thou, O Lord, art more than they."

The Spenserian Stanza, historically celebrated as the
measure of Spenser's Faerie Queene, is an elaborately con-
structed stanza of nine lines, eight of them iambic pentam-
eter, the ninth an Alexandrine ; the rhymes disposed after
the unvarying model ababbcbcc. There is a peculiar
effect of artistry about the stanza, well corresponding to the
elaborate grace of the "poet's poet." The stanza has been
employed by Worsley, with more elegance than Homeric
spirit, in his translation of the Odyssey.

Example. — The following, from The Faerie Queene, will illustrate the
Spenserian model : —

" The Lyon would not leave her desolate,
But with her went along, as a strong gard
Of her chast person, and a faythfull mate
Of her sad troubles and misfortunes hard :
Still, when she slept, he kept both watch and ward ;
And, when she wakt, he way ted diligent,
With humble service to her will prepard :
From her fayre eyes he tooke commandement,
And ever by her lookes conceived her intent."

The most elaborate stanza form of all, perhaps, and one of
the most esteemed, is the Sonnet. This is a fourteen-lined
stanza constituting in itself a complete poem. Its measure
is iambic pentameter, and its rhymes follow a fixed succes-
sion, though there are several slightly differing models. One
standard scheme of rhymes is: abbaabbacdecde. The
turn of the sentiment occurs at or near the end of the eighth
line ; wherefore the first eight lines are called the octette, and
the last six the sestette. Sometimes these two parts are sepa-
rated by a space, as if they were two stanzas.

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE. 189

Though derived from the Italian, the sonnet has in English
become a thoroughly congenial vehicle for a brief range of
meditative or concentrated sentiment. Within its limits it is
adapted to wellnigh all varieties of expression, being equally
natural for sweep and point, grace and strength.

A sonnet, as has been said, is a complete poem ; but son-
nets may be written in sequence, forming a series of poems
more or less closely connected and continuous. Some of the
most celebrated sonnet-sequences in our language are Shakes-
peare's Sonnets, Mrs. Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese,
and Rossetti's House of Life.

Example. — The following, Wordsworth's Sonnet on the Sonnet, will
both exemplify the form and define the value of this stanza form : —

" Scorn not the Sonnet ; Critic, you have frowned,
Mindless of its just honors ; with this key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart ; the melody
Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound ;
A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound ;
With it Camoens soothed an exile's grief ;
The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf

*. Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned
His visionary brow : a glow-worm lamp,
It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land
To struggle through dark ways ; and, when a damp
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand
The Thing became a trumpet ; whence he blew
Soul-animating strains — alas, too few ! "

II. THE LIFE OF VERSE.*

In the writing of poetry there is always, according to its
dominant character, a surge, an impulse, in one of two direc-
tions : either toward the more soaring and melodious sweep
of music, or toward the freer more informal movement of
prose. Obedience to this impulse is not to be regarded as a

1 " That opposition which is the life of verse." — Stevenson, ut supra, p. 254.

190 DICTION.

license, as if it were the transgression of some rule ; rather
it is a natural modulation of key, called for by the descriptive
or emotional demand of the sentiment, which exerts an attrac-
tion on the metrical scheme, and without invading its integrity
makes it limpid and flexible to a very appreciable degree.
Some account of these modulations, therefore, is necessary
to a fundamental understanding of poetic rhythm ; while also
it will prepare the way to a clearer apprehension of the rhythm
of prose.

Overtones of Musical Rhythm. — As soon as we go from
blank verse or plain recitative to poetry of a more lyric kind,
we become aware, with the greater intensity in the sentiment,
of a greater sweep and freedom in the verse. The tune, the
rhythmic scheme, is decidedly more marked and obvious ; the
verse more suggestive of song. When, however, we apply
the classic standards to the scanning of it, with their un-
varying sequences of short and long syllables, we run against
characteristics of metre that fit very awkwardly if at all.
Exceptions, variations, accommodations, become so numerous
as wellnigh to invalidate the rule. Yet this we know is not
the fault of the poetry, which speaks for itself ; it is rather
the inadequacy of a too rigid nomenclature, which like a Pro-
crustean bed can make its phenomena fit its conventional
schemes only by much crowding and stretching, and even
then only by leaving its interpretations lifeless.

There is, as we shall see,1 much pliancy, much freedom of
interchange and blending, in the more recitative or dissyl-
labic measures ; even here we shall find some pauses, pro-
longations, and condensations of quantities, hard to explain.
In the trisyllabic feet, which having a more marked lilt are
more distinctively the lyric metres, these anomalies become

1 See next section, Pliancy of the Recitative Measures.

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE.

191

nothing short of baffling. To account for them rightly, while
we need not abandon the current system of prosody so far as
it will go, we must have recourse to the terms and distinctions
of music; and this is just, because the lyric movement, accord-
ing to its intensity, is really an advance toward song ; on the
conventional metre adopted for the basis it superinduces an
overtone of musical rhythm. Committing ourselves frankly
to the principles of musical rhythm, we find the baffling phe-
nomena of lyric metre, which in truth are not anomalous or
erratic, falling into ordered and self-justifying system.

Illustration. — How much more satisfactory is a musical than a pro-
sodical interpretation of some measures may be seen from Tennyson's
Charge of the Light Brigade. Measured by the only metrical unit open to
us, the dactylic, it jerks along in a strange sort of hippity-hop movement :
" Half a league, | half a league, j Half a league | onward ; " | which after
all does not catch the tune, — the metre coming to our ears not as longs
balanced by coupled shorts but as a palpable triple time. Put it now in
the musical rhythm it naturally suggests, and all its syllabic values and
quantities become clear : —

§111

I 4 4 4

1 1 1
4 4 4

J J «

Half a league

, half a league,

Half a league

- ward,

1 _, IS N
4*^4 4

Mil

4 4 4 4

1 IN I
4 4 4

1
0

All in the

val - ley of Death

Rode the six

mil -

dred.

Phenomena to be explained. — In order to realize how far
short of its full duty our current prosody comes, it may be
well to recount here the most salient of the characteristics
that stand yet in need of explanation. These are taken not
from exceptional but from everyday poetic usage.

i. At the outset, the existing metrical system, with its
meagre choice of longs and shorts, is not a true because not

1 This ought perhaps to be § rather than \ ; but the quarter note measure is here
used a.s more generally familiar.

192 DICTION.

a delicate standard of measure ; as a matter of fact, syllables
are of all lengths, not absolutely long and short but relatively
longer and shorter. This fact should have some means of
notation and record.

2. The last foot of a line is often, and other feet are some-
times, left incomplete ; a single syllable may represent them.
Is there, or is there not, something — a pause or a prolonga-
tion — to fill the gap ?

3. The first syllable not infrequently reads like a kind of
tag or remainder from the last foot of the previous line, or as
if it were a short preliminary to the serious business of its own
line.

4. The interior feet are much changed about ; anapests
and iambics, dactyls and trochees, freely interchanging.
Indeed, so constantly do the trisyllabic feet interchange and
blend with one another that some have doubted whether they
were distinct measures ; and others, yielding the whole ques-
tion of classic metres, have introduced instead the scanning
of verse by accents.

Illustrative Note. — Coleridge's Christabel has already been men-
tioned on p. 177 as an alleged innovation in metre; the innovation con-
sisted in keeping four accented positions, in lines varying from seven to
twelve syllables in length ; thus : —

This explains the number of feet ; but the controlling lilt, the anapestic
tune, is not accounted for.

To show how much elision and interchange may be admitted without
impairing the underlying measure, take the following old nursery rhyme,
the tune of which is set by the first word " Remember," making an amphi-
brach scheme (w w) : —

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE. 193

The following stanzas, from Kipling, the tune of which is set by the words
" The cities," are throughout in the same amphibrach movement, though
only two measures in the two stanzas are complete : —

" The Cities | are full \j | of pride, \j \

\j Challenging each \j | to each — \j \
\j This from | her moun- \j | tain-side, \j \

\j That from | her bur- \j | thened beach. \^ |

They count \j | their ships \j | fiill tale — \j \
Their c5rn \j \ and oil \j | and wine, \j \

\j Derrick | and loom \j | and bale, \j \

And ram- \j |parts gun- \j \ flecked line; \j \

\j City | by city | they hail : \j \

Hast aught \j \ to match \j \ with mine ? " \j \

The Musical Interpretation. — These last cited examples sug-
gest, however clumsily, a law underlying the lyric measures
and existing as the clearest basal principle in musical rhythm :
the law, namely, of compensation and equivalence. If one
foot is substituted for another, as an iambus for an anapest,
the substitute has the same rhythmic value ; nay, if only a
single syllable represents a foot, we are mentally aware of
a pause, or a prolongation of the syllable given, sufficient to
make up the same net effect. Now all this, which we can feel
so much better than we can express in prosodic terms, is per-
fectly expressed in the musical measure. All the measures
in any chosen time — double, triple, quadruple — are exactly
equivalent to each other, and in whatever way they are made
up the parts of one compensate for the parts of the other.
The notation of the details of this law leads us to note the
following elements : —

i. Notes may be prolonged or shortened with absolute
freedom ; they simply take up thereby so much more or so
much less of the measure, leaving so much less or more time
to fill the remainder of the measure.

2. A pause in the rhythmical sense is counted in the same
values as an utterance ; either by a rest or a prolongation.

194

DICTION.

3. As a musical measure begins with the accented beat, we
often begin the musical utterance not at the beginning of a
measure but on some unaccented note of the previous meas-
ure. This accounts for the tag in the opening foot ; it is
really an up-beat preparatory for the accent which begins the
next measure.

4. When a line begins with the up-beat, musical rhythm
observes the compensation by ending with a measure lacking
just that remainder of being full ; so the end answers to the
beginning, and the beginning, however insignificant, has its
integral part in the whole.

Examples. — All that can be done here to illustrate this large subject
is to set a few examples to their natural musical rhythm, leaving the stu-
dent to select the illustrations of the various details of the principle.

1. The compensation and equivalence in different measures of the same
scheme may be seen illustrated in the setting of Tennyson's Charge of the
Light Brigade on p. 191, where the basal measure £ is represented in no
fewer than five different ways : —

J J J; J

•* / js J J J J;

all, however, coming to exactly the same thing, and simply representing
delicate differences in syllabic value.

2. The up-beat, or last note of a foot, with the corresponding shortening
at the close, is illustrated in Hullah's melody to Kingsley's Three Fishers,
which brings out thereby the value of the words as it actually exists : —

lis

:£

£^^5=3

Three

fish - ers went sail - ing out

to the west, Out

the west as

the

went down.

3. To illustrate the significance of the rest, or what comes to the same
thing, the prolongation, in lyrical rhythm, we may take Tennyson's " Break
break, break," which, unless we regard these opening words as monosyllabic

eak,
abic

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE.

195

representatives of whole feet, is a puzzling problem in metre. Take them,
however, as notes in a triple (or f ) time, and everything is clear: —

4 n / -i

Break, break,

break, On

thy

cold gray stones, O

Sea I

The form of the prolonged note is used in Boott's setting of the poem

m m 4-

Break, break.

--•—

*=fc

break, On thy

fcr

£=S=£

cold gray stones,0

Seal

Break, break,

cold gray stones, O

Sea!

break, On thy

4. As a further general illustration of this subject, let us try to set the
first stanza of Tennyson's Bugle Song to musical rhythm : —

walls,

sto -

ry:

IS
J

I
4-

the

lakes,

J**

glo - ry.

2 ' *

Blow, bu

I IS IS

4 4 4

Blow, bu - gle,

gle,
ft

J /

blow, set

IS ft ft

4 4 4 0

an- swer ech - oes

the

wild

J js

dy-

ing,

ecli

oes

dy - ing

* 1

J J

fly - ing,

1 J

ing.

1 Tins measure of triplets might be set in f time.

3 This, it will be observed, is the true quantitative dactylic measure.

196

DICTION.

5. The following is offered as an attempt to represent the various feet
in their appropriate musical equivalents : —

Iambic : 1

: J
: 4
The

1 III 1
d 4 \J 4
voice 1 of ' days 1 of

1 1
^ 4
old | and

1 1

a 4

days 1 to

be. |

Trochaic :

S 1 1

4 a 4

Hopes and

1 1

a 4

fears, be -

1 1

0 4

lief and

J J

dis - be -

-1 *

liev - ing.

Spondaic 1

§ IN fS
4 4 4
Anapestic : I It will

IS IS
^ 4 4
come,! I sus -

pect, I at the

end

life.

Dactylic *

Af -

ter

z=-

1 1

l
4

it,

4
fol -

4
low

4
it,

4
Fol

* 4
■ low the

Gleam.

4 4

Amphibrach : | Re

These notes represent, as nearly as possible, the typical measure ; but of
course in every poem the notes are subject to prolongation or abbreviation,
according to the pauses and the sense.

It will be seen from these last examples that the predominating lyric
movement in English is some form of triple time. This is true, and owing,
as the early poetry would seem to show, to a native genius of the language.

1 Compare the footnote on the previous page.

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE. 197

II.

Pliancy of the Recitative Measures. — In the dissyllabic
measures, and more especially in blank verse, there is an
ever-present danger of monotony to be guarded against.
The very faithfulness to the metrical type engenders it : if
the scheme is not broken and varied continually the result is
hard and wooden. It is this fact which makes blank verse,
apparently so easy to compose, in reality the hardest and
highest achievement in poetry.

Five iambic feet succeeding each other line after line
indefinitely form a rigid type of poetic construction, dictat-
ing apparently an eternal sameness of tune ; and yet if we
examine the master-work of our language in this kind of verse
— the work of Milton, Wordsworth, and Tennyson — we find
that no two lines are alike, that in pause and accent the verse,
while still faithful to the pattern, is infinitely pliant and varied,
a thing of free life and movement. The causes of this we are to
consider. One, which we seek in the phrase, will come up for
discussion in the next section ; what we are to specify here has
already been in part suggested, the skilful variation of the foot.

Rationale and Limits. — The artistic ideal of any variation
or modulation is, that it should not seem to be necessitated
by poverty of resource, as if it were a means of getting out of
a difficulty ; rather it should justify itself, passing from a
license to a positive grace, by its evident flexibility to the
sense ; should add a condensive point or a descriptive sugges-
tion, a distinction as it were born of and compelled by the inner
sentiment. Herein lies that poetic masterliness which even
in apparent disregard of law conceals the highest artistry.

Note. — The examples already quoted on pp. 160 and 161 have intro-
duced us to the onomatopoetic wording and coloring imparted to poetic
di< t ion; and these effects, as is there seen, are in part produced by the
variation or temporary suspension of rhythm.

198 DICTION.

In all liberty of variation the chosen metrical scheme is
a kind of tether, which, though it may be stretched, should
never fail to keep the underlying type within hailing distance.
Another measure than the one in hand may be transiently sug-
gested ; but if this is carried so far as to obscure the original
key, or make the controlling scheme uncertain, there must be
a palpable artistic reason for it or it becomes a crudity and a
blemish.1

Note. — In the line from Milton quoted on p. 161 above, —

" Burnt after them to the bottomless pit," —

there is a palpable artistic reason for the entire suspension of rhythm ; but
one thing remains intact, the ten syllables, the material so to speak for a
pentameter iambic line ; and the iambic setting all around keeps us within
the metrical tether. This, while perhaps an extreme instance, is very
instructive.

Interchange and Blending of Measures. — This pliancy of the
recitative measures reduces itself to a free interchange of
metrical units, suggesting momentarily a change of tune, but
not carried on far enough to make or even seriously to pro-
pose a change of key. That is, the interchange is to be
so managed and so recovered from that the metrical scheme
shall remain intact.

i. As applied to the single foot, the most frequent exercise
of this pliancy, so frequent indeed as hardly to be felt as an
irregularity, is the introduction of an occasional trochee into
iambic measure, lightening the touch ; or, when the measure
is trochaic, the similar introduction of an occasional iambus
for weight. To both measures, too, a very convenient relief,
with its offsetting effect of largeness, slowness, or dignity, is
the occasional introduction of the spondee, which thus serves
the purpose of a general helping measure.

Examples. — i. Instances of the introduction of trochaic feet into
blank verse are so numerous that examples may be taken absolutely at
1 See below, p. 208, 3.

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE. 199

random. (The opening line of Milton's Paradise Lost, Book ii, begins
with a trochee, which has the effect, by the two short syllables thus thrown A/
together, of hurrying the voice on to the important word throne : —)

" High on | 5 throne | of roylal state, | which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus or of Ind."

The second line, here quoted, is regular ; so is the third ; but in the fourth
and fifth lines we come upon trochees again, the first foot of the fourth
making up a long syllable by blending two short ones : —

2. The following, from Browning's One Word More, illustrates the
introduction of an iambus into trochaic verse: —

3. The peculiarly large and epic effect of the opening of Tennyson's
Morte d'Arthur, due partly, as has been said, to its open vowels (see
above, p. 157), is also due in part to the spondees of the beginning: —

2. But this interchange of measures seldom confines its
effect to a single foot. It immediately produces, with the
next foot, a secondary rhythm which blends with the primary
or type rhythm, suggesting the flash of a new scheme. Thus
a trochee followed by an iambus (_ \j \ \j _), by its grouping
of two short syllables together, produces an interweave which
we read either dactylic (— ^> v) or anapestic (ww_),
according to the pause. An iambus followed by a trochee
(w _ I _ w), by its grouping of two long syllables together,
produces an interweave of spondaic ( ).

Examples. — In the following examples the secondary measure, or
interweave, is marked from above, the primary measure from below,
thus : —

1 High 5n|S thr5ne|

[Fast by |thg'oriacl5| Sf G5d|

200 DICTTON.

Here the important word throne attracts the two shorts, forming with them
an anapest ; and the long syllable Fast, attracting the next two syllables,
forms with them a dactyl. In this second example the word oracle forms
a second dactylic interweave — a rare example.1

Sometimes the trochaic substitute confines its effect to a single foot,
as in the line quoted under i, above : —

Satan | exalt ;ed sat

but it will be noted that an amphibrach interweave succeeds, —

! Satan | exalt | ed sat. |

This will be further explained by the phrasal undertone ; see below, p. 204.
In the example from Browning the iambus offsetting the trochee goes
on to the next foot to form a spondaic interweave : —

1 Dante, | who loved | well.

3. Another way of producing a blending of rhythms, not
sufficiently noticed in prosody, is by shortening the long syl-
lable of a foot, leaving the iambus, for instance, represented
only by two short syllables. To explain this, which is by no
means infrequent, we must count the influence of a contiguous
pause, which takes into itself some of the value of a succeed-
ing foot or syllable.

Examples. — It will be observed that in the quotation from Tennyson's
Morte d' Arthur, p. 199, one syllable of the second line is left unmarked.
The reason is that while the scheme calls for a long the syllable is really
short, leaving the measure only two shorts and a pause (rhetorical) in
length. The effect is to produce with the next measure an anapestic
blend : —

by [the winder sea. |

This word by is shortened by the appreciable pause after mountains.

In the following well-known lines from Wordsworth, notice the marking
we are compelled to adopt : —

1 The seemingly defective iambic foot, " Scle," is perhaps explainable by the
natural pause after it ; see paragraph 3.

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE. 201

Here there is much shortening of syllables which by the scheme should be
long ; but in each case of shortening there is a pause (here marked by <*])
to compensate. This deliberate slighting of syllabic values, by hurrying
over to succeeding feet, produces the following interweaves: —

is | the light | (Anapest.)

I And the | round 5 cean, (Anapest and trochee, here exceptional on account
of the spondee of the second foot.)

and the | living air | (Anapest.)

r- i

I And the | blue sky t (Anapest and spondee ; a double blend.)

4. Not so frequent, and correspondingly more striking, is
the introduction of two short syllables as equivalent for one
long syllable. This, by its -effect of crowding short sounds
together and blending with the next foot, gives a rapid, rug-
ged movement to the verse.

Examples. — The line from Tennyson's Gareth and Lynette, —

" Then would he whistle rapid as any lark " —

has been cited on p. 161 as illustrating the quick effect of pronouncing two
syllables in the time of one (^ rapid | as ajny lark).

The following, in which the crowded shorts are offset by a spondee, is
from the same poem : —

In the following, from the song of Arthur's knights (The Coming of
Arthur) the variations of metre are carried so far as almost to obscure
the underlying scheme : —

In this third line there is not a single iambus ; the comparative regularity
of the previous lines is depended on to preserve the metrical scheme
intact.

202 DICTION.

III.

Undertone of Phrasal Rhythm. — At the beginning of the
chapter it was said that metre is not the only rhythmical
motive in poetry. It is in fact merely one of two, — a conven-
tional pattern whereby the diction is set to tune ; but this
pattern is constantly opposed by and blended with an uncon-
ventional rhythm which by its undertone of new syllabic
combinations enlivens and endlessly varies the metrical color-
ing. This latter rhythm we call phrasal, or the rhythm of
the phrase.

Let it be noted here, then, as a preparation for the next
section, that in poetry we have to* deal with a double rhythm,
in which the metrical, the distinctively poetic element, is
superimposed upon a rhythmical undertone already existing
in the comely structure of the phrase. In prose, as the metri-
cal element is dropped, we have to deal merely with a single
rhythm, the phrasal undertone surviving as the determining
element.

The rhythm of the phrase cannot be reduced by any writer
or teacher to laws which another must follow. It must be
left to the finely attuned and cultivated ear, to the writer's own
sense of pleasing melody.1 All we can do here is to trace
its interactions with metre ; postponing the question of its
principles and components to the section on prose rhythm.

The Caesura. — Phrasal rhythm makes its first and most
palpable assertion, especially in blank verse, through the
caesura, which is a pause, real though not always marked by

1 " Each phrase of each sentence, like an air or a recitative in music, should be
so artfully compounded out of long and short, out of accented and unaccented,, as to
gratify the sensual ear. And of this the ear is the sole judge. It is impossible to
lay down laws. Even in our accentual and rhythmic language no analysis can find
the secret of the beauty of a verse ; how much less, then, of those phrases, such as
prose is built of, which obey no law but to be lawless and yet to please." — Steven
son, On Some Technical Elements of Style in Literature, Works, Vol. xxii, p. 252.

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE. 203

punctuation, somewhere in the interior of a verse. This
pause, though nearly all verses have it, is not designed to
divide the verse into sections, nor indeed with reference to
the verse at all ; it merely marks the bounds of the larger
grammatical phrase or clause, as independent of the metrical.
The section that it bounds, then, may either have begun with
the verse or may have run over from the previous verse, just as
the sense may happen to dictate ; and so the verse itself may
or may not be paused at the end. In other words, the caesu-
ral pause is the constant assertion that while the metrical
clause (that is, the verse) is bound, the grammatical phrase
or clause is free to move boldly in and out of the metrical,
making its own ways and limits.

Illustration. — In the following passage, from Tennyson's Lucretius,
the place of the caesura is marked by the sign (||), and opposite the lines
are placed figures indicating the number of feet from the beginning at which
it comes. Along with these things, in order better to reckon the bounds
of the grammatical phrase, the reader should note whether the end of the
verse has a pause or runs on.

" Storm, and what dreams, || ye holy Gods, what dreams ! (2)

For thrice I wakened after dreams. || Perchance (4)

We do but recollect || the dreams that come (3)

Just ere the waking: || terrible! for it seem'd (2%)

A void was made in Nature ; || all her bonds (3%)

Crack'd; || and I saw the flaring atom-streams (y2)

And torrents || of her myriad universe, (jVz)

Ruining along the illimitable inane, ( — )

Fly on to clash together again, || and make (4)

Another and another frame of things ( — )

For ever : || that was mine, my dream, I knew it." (ilA)

In the two lines marked ( — ), we may regard the cassural pause as coming
at the end, that is, as coinciding with the metrical. In the case of the
run-on lines, it may be seen how the phrases move independently; e.g.

Perchance we do but recollect

For it seem'd a void was made in Nature.

All her bonds crack'd.

These are virtually lines within lines, not to be scanned apart from the
existing metrical scheme, but read by the sense.

204 DICTION.

N The utility of the caesura is obvious. It is first of all the
great means of averting the ever-menacing monotony of verse
and from a dead level of formal metre making it into an ever-
shifting, ever-varied thing. This it does by the fact that its
place is seldom twice the same. Nor is it merely the length
of the phrase, of the line within the line, that is affected.
Often the metre too, from being a tyranny of iambics, melts
into the evasive suggestion of a new tune, particularly when
the pause occurs in the middle of a foot ; and thus a shade
of new coloring is added to the verse.

Examples of This Latter. — When the caesura occurs after the first
syllable of a foot (iambic) it leaves the long syllable to begin the next
phrase, and thus naturally suggests a trochaic sequence. An instance of
this is seen in

1 r — z 1 ^~i — — n 1

l "For ever: that | was mine, ■ my dream, | I knew \ it,"

where the effect is increased by completing the trochee at the end. Some-
times, however, this trochaic sequence is averted by shortening the long
syllable (cf. p. 200, 3), and suggesting an anapest; e.g.

" and I saw | the flaring atom-streams,"
" 8f her myrliad universe."

Only a shade of effect, but appreciable, in the complex modulation of the
rhythm.

The Phrasal Segmentation. — The caesural system may be
regarded as the phrasal undertone relating itself to the verse,
making it varied and flexible. Beyond this, however, and relat-
ing itself similarly to the foot, there is a further segmentation
of phrase, detected in the pauses made by a good reader,
whereby the verse already made up of five feet by the con-
ventional metre, is really read in three or four syllabic groups,
each pronounced virtually as a single word and making up a
new rhythmical pattern. Thus arises the singular fact that
while a verse is scanned according to a rigid system of feet,
oftener than not it is read and ought to be read with regard
not to these feet at all but to the underlying natural grouping

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE. 205

of phrasal rhythm. This is the marvel of the double pattern
according to which poetry is composed.1

This phrasal segmentation, by far the most potent and
constant means of modulating poetic rhythm, is as it were
the mediator between the formalism of poetic utterance and
the unstudied naturalness of speech. At every point, by its
undertone of homelier melody, it suggests the presence of the
real controlling the imagined, of the practical domesticating
the ideal ; so that poetry, which by its very metrical exactions
must be an achievement of artistry, approves itself as an
utterance of life.

In reading the phrasal rhythm under the metrical our con-
ception of the involvements of prosody is enlarged by several
discoveries.

First, we find that we must recognize a much larger range
of grouping, longs and shorts, than are laid down, or can be
laid down, in a classification of poetic feet. To the phrasal
foot, if such it can be called, are open all possible combina-

1 " We have been accustomed to describe the heroic line as five iambic feet, and
to be filled with pain and confusion whenever, as by the conscientious schoolboy, we
have heard our own description put in practice.

' All night | the dread|less an|gel un|pursued,'

goes the schoolboy; but though we close our ears, we cling to our definition, in
spite of its proved and naked insufficiency. Mr. Jenkin was not so easily pleased,
and readily discovered that the heroic line consists of four groups, or, if you prefer
the phrase, contains four pauses :

' All night | the dreadless | angel | unpursued.'

Four groups, each practically uttered as one word : the first, in this case, an iamb ;
the second, an amphibrachys; the third, a trochee ; and the fourth, an amphimacer ;
and yet our schoolboy, with no other liberty but that of inflicting pain, had trium-
phantly scanned it as five iambs. Perceive, now, this fresh richness of intricacy in the
web ; this fourth orange, hitherto unremarked, but still kept flying with the others.
What had seemed to be one thing it now appears is two ; and, like some puzzle
in arithmetic, the verse is made at the same time to read in fives and to read in
-Stevenson, On Some Technical Elements of Style in Literature, Works,
Vol. xxii, p. 253.

206 DICTION.

tions, from one to five syllables, that contain not (ordinarily)
more than two longs.

Secondly, we discover that a good proportion of the articu-
late sounds which for metrical purposes must be read long or
short, are really common or neutral in quantity, and may at
the same time be long in prosody and short in the phrasal
undertone. This fact greatly enlarges the capacity of the
language for rhythmical shadings and variation.

Thirdly, we get a new light upon the pliancy of the recita-
tive measures. When feet are interchanged, or take redun-
dant or slurred syllables, it is for the sake of a comelier or
more descriptive phrase, a measure nearer the rhythm of the
sense. Thus the seeming irregularity is not such at all, but
the obedience of a finely tuned ear to the demands of a more
fundamental melody.

Illustrations of Phrasal Rhythm. — The phrasal segmentation
may be regarded theoretically as the subdivision of the caesural (cf, p. 203,
above) ; hence the typical grouping of phrases is into fours. A group of
three makes a more rapid line ; the exceptional grouping into two, more
rapid and descriptive still ; the occasional single syllable having the oppo-
site effect of abruptness and weighty pause.

We can now understand the line already quoted from Milton : —

" Burnt after them to the bottomless pit."

The phrasal segmentation into two, coincident with the caesural, and
the caesura itself the lightest possible, gives an exceedingly rapid move
ment, which is further enhanced by the congestion of short syllables :-

Burnt after them \j \j

To the bottomless pit \j \j \J^J\J

The treatment of monosyllabic lines, which are apt to become monoto-
nous, is instructive. Sometimes only the phrasal segmentation, and not
variation of quantity, operates to temper the monotony ; e.g.

" The voice of days of old and days to be."

The voice w

of days of old \j \j

and days to be \j \j

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE. 207

Oftener, however, some prolongation or shortening of syllables modifies
the line by infusing its lighter or weightier influence into the phrase ; e.g.
" And sang all day old songs of love and death."

And sang w

all day

old songs

of love and death w w

or as in this line from Browning : —

" This low-pulsed, forthright, craftsman's hand of mine."

This low-pulsed

forthright,

craftsman's hand w

of mine w

In the following the number of shorts, especially toward the end, produces
a palpable effect : —

" But all the play, the insight, and the stretch —
Out of me, out of me ! "

But all the play,

w W

the insight,

w w

and the stretch —

w w

Out of me,

— w w

out of me !

w w

It is the phrasal rhythm that brings out the value of the polysyllable in
poetry, both by its new grouping of the regular sequences and by its free
introduction of the triplet and like variations ; e.g.

" the new campanula's
Illuminate seclusion swung in air."

the new w

campanula's w w w

Illuminate w w w

seclusion w w

swung in air w

Examples of the triplet : —

" The multitudinous seas incarnadine."

The multitudinous w w www'

seas

incarnadine w w

" Ruining along the illimitable inane."
Ruining

www

along w

the illimitable

J w

mane

208 DICTION.

Relations of Phrase and Metre. — As the phrasal rhythm is
the instrument of that opposition and variety which is the
life of verse, it must be mindful of the relations to metre
which it is free to adopt or bound to shun. The following
are of importance.

i. Except for the special descriptive effect of monotony,
the phrase should not to any considerable extent coincide
with the metrical foot ; as soon as it does its undertone
becomes inaudible.

Note. — The following monosyllabic line from Milton, descriptive of
the arduous journey of Satan through chaos, produces the effect of diffi-
culty and monotonous toil by making metrical and phrasal rhythm coin-
cident through the whole verse : —

" And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies."
In the nature of the case, however, such a line is rare; while it justifies
itself, it suggests that general procedure should be different.

2. Ordinarily the phrase should be ampler than the foot ;
on this increase of breadth depends its music. A phrase
smaller than the foot (namely, a single syllable) suggests
abruptness, or concentration of intensity, obviously only an
occasional requisite. Coincidence with the foot, as intimated
above, suggests some aspect of monotony.

3. The phrase, while it limbers up the metrical tune by
suggesting new syllabic groupings, should not suggest any
other metrical scheme than the one in hand. It follows from
this that ordinarily no two phrases of a line, especially no two
contiguous phrases, should scan the same ; if they did there
would be danger of substituting one scheme for another. It
must be remembered that, while the phrasal rhythm is a con-
stant undertone, the metre exists as the determining principle
of the verse ; a principle whose integrity must be preserved
through all modulations.1

1 From the article of Stevenson's above referred to, which has been freely used in
this study of phrasal rhythm, a few more sentences may be quoted : —

" The groups which, like the bar in music, break up the verse for utterance, fall

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE. 209

A word of summary may here be of service, before we enter
upon the next section.

As all literature is evolved ultimately from speech, so in
all literary diction, prose and verse alike, there survives a
fundamental speech-rhythm-, or rhythm of the phrase, corre-
sponding to the pauses, the breathing points, and the vocal
modulations observed by a good speaker or reader. As
poetry submits itself to the new law of metre it does not
discard this original rhythm, but rather blends it as an
undertone with its own melody, deriving life and flexibility
of movement from its opposing yet harmonizing presence.
This undertone sounds more clearly and is more vital as the
poetry, being of the recitative order, is less removed from the
movement of prose. As, however, the poetry becomes more
intense and lyrical, the phrase rhythm, though not obliter-
ated, coincides more closely with the metrical, both being
in fact swept on by an overtone of musical rhythm, which
raises the speech into the movement of song. Of all these

uniambically ; and in declaiming a so-called iambic verse, it may so happen that we
never utter one iambic foot. And yet to this neglect of the original beat there is a
limit.

' Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts,'

is, with all its eccentricities, a good heroic line ; for though it scarcely can be said to
indicate the beat of the iamb, it certainly suggests no other measure to the ear. But
begin

1 Mother Athens, eye of Greece,'

or merely ' Mother Athens,' and the game is up, for the trochaic beat has been sug-
gested. The eccentric scansion of the groups is an adornment ; but as soon as the
original beat has been forgotten, they cease implicitly to be eccentric. Variety is
what is sought ; but if we destroy the original mould, one of the terms of this variety
is lost, and we fall back on sameness."

With the succeeding sentences we may sum up this subject : —
" Thus, both as to the arithmetical measure of the verse, and the degree of regu-
larity in scansion, we see the laws of prosody to have one common purpose : to
keep alive the opposition of two schemes simultaneously followed ; to keep them
notably apart, though still coincident ; and to balance them with such Judii i: 1
Bicety before the render, that neither shall lx: unperceived and neither signally pre-
vail."— Stevenson, On Some Technical Elements of Style in Literature, Works,

Vol. xxii, p. 254.

210 DICTION.

modulations, phrasal, metrical, and musical, we must take
account in analyzing the complicated texture of poetic
diction.

III. THE RHYTHM OF PROSE.1

We are now in position to understand that there is a
rhythm in prose no less truly than in poetry ; for we have
already recognized the presence of its elements. The rhythm
of prose is the phrasal rhythm, no longer an undertone but
a determining principle, moving unconventionally by itself ;
the single pattern of rhythm existing before the metrical or
musical movement has been adopted to make the pattern
double.2 In other words, it is the natural melodious flow of
eloquent or well-ordered speech.

Obviously, if rhythm is to be found in all prose it must
exist in great variety. In colloquial speech and ordinary
reportage we think of it little if at all ; it is only where there
is care for the best-chosen words and the most skilfully and
closely knit texture that the question of rhythm is raised, it
being essentially an affair of artistry. Nor has rhythm a fair
opportunity in the short sentence, such as concentrates its
power in a single word ; it calls rather for some roll and rich-
ness of movement, and for the balance of clause and clause.
Further, it becomes more marked and elaborate as prose
approaches in elevation and imaginative sentiment toward
poetry.3

As maintained against Poetic Rhythm. — To work with the
thought of securing rhythm so naturally suggests some meas-
ure and regulator of rhythm, some metrical scheme, that the
writer has to be on his guard against the poetic elements

1 " The other harmony of prose." — Dryden. 2 See above, p. 171.

3 See The Approaches of Prose to Poetry, pp. 163 sgq., above.

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE. 211

that constantly seek to obtrude themselves ; has to keep his
ear alert in order that, while the phrase is kept large and
comely, it shall never fall into a set tune, or at least that the
tune shall be constantly varied, unconventional, elusive. The
only sure preparation for this is a musical ear, and a taste
that is trained instinctively to associate any sentiment with
its appropriate vocal movement and coloring. In prose all
rhythmic rules are ignored, while all the rhythmic potencies
are in full sway, responding to the vital moulding power of the
thought. Hence prose rhythm, while it is ideally free, cannot
be left to happen ; its very freedom requires that it be main-
tained against anything, metre or diction, that suggests the
invasion of poetry.1

Tendency to Sing-Song. — This positive shunning of poetic
rhythm needs to be insisted on, because in certain stages or
moods of literary art there is a great tendency to run into a
too regular rhythm, — into the beat of bad blank verse, or
as it is here called, sing-song. Stevenson attributes such
tendency to the bad writer, to the inexperienced writer try-
ing to be impressive, and to the jaded writer.2 It may
become, like word-play or antithesis, a mannerism, a disease
of style. It is, in the literary diction, analogous to what is
called the "holy tone" in the usage of the pulpit,8 and is
equally fatal to sturdy impressiveness.

Examples. — Dr. Johnson, it is said, in the course of a discussion on
this very tendency to fall into metre, remarked : —

" Such verse we make when we are writing prose ;
We make such verse in common conversation."

1 " The rule of scansion in verse is to suggest no measure but the one in hand ; in
prose, to suggest no measure at all. Prose must be rhythmical, and it may be as
much so as you will ; but it must not be metrical. It may be anything, but it must
not be verse. A single heroic line may very well pass and not disturb the somewhat
larger stride of the prose style ; but one following another will produce an instant
impression of poverty, flatness, and disenchantment." — Stevenson, On Some
Technical Elements of Style in Literature, p. 256.

2 Stevenson, it. 8 See above, p. 67, 2.

212 DICTION.

Dickens, in his earlier works, is often cited as the awful example of
this tendency ; it is said that he sometimes had to call on his friend Forster
to break up the metrical tune in which, in spite of himself, he would find
himself writing in some moods. The following, from the account of the
funeral of Little Nell, in Old Curiosity Shop, is not changed at all in expres-
sion but only printed in lines : —

Oh ! it is hard to take to heart
the lesson that such deaths will teach,

but let no man reject it,
for it is one that all must learn,
and is a mighty, universal Truth.
When Death strikes down the innocent and young,
for every fragile form from which he lets
the panting spirit free,
a hundred virtues rise,
in shapes of mercy, charity, and love,
to walk the world, and bless it.
Of every tear
that sorrowing mortals shed on such green graves,
some good is born, some gentler nature comes.

In the Destroyer's steps
there spring up bright creations that defy
his power, and his dark path becomes a way
of light to Heaven." 1

This is virtually in the ode measure, and, printed as an ode, has much
beauty ; as prose, however, it is an instance of sing-song.

What the Prose Standard dictates. — The dominating stand-
ard of utility,2 in the choice, arrangement, and connection of
words may here be recalled, to determine the negative ele-
ments in the maintenance of a true prose rhythm against
encroachments of the poetic movement.

i. A prose rhythm will bear no displacement or inversion
of words or sentence-elements for the mere sake of a smoother
or more regular flow. Such displacements and inversions there
are in abundance, but their object is utilitarian ; if no such
object is traceable the immediate effect is artificial and
insincere.

1 Dickens, Old Curiosity S/w/, Part ii, Chap. xvii.

2 See above, pp. 109 sqq.

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE. 213

2. Prose rhythm does not bear the abbreviation of words,
as o'er, oft, ne'er, 'neath; and only to a limited extent the
briefer poetic forms, like scarce for scarcely, save for except,
ere for before, words chosen obviously to reduce the number
of syllables. Nor does it accept aid from slurred or elided
syllables. One element of its varied movement is to make a
pleasing combination of the articulate sounds at disposal,
working the full value of every syllable into the rhythmic
tissue, without seeming to go out of its way for a melodious
vocabulary.

3. A greater temptation it is, when the swing of rhythm
is developed into a craving, to introduce meaningless or
watered phrases for the sake of helping out the balance of
sound. Thus a tendency to group the phrasal architecture in
uniform patterns of twos or threes may become a real bond-
age, to be watched, and remedied by varying the tune, or by
making sure always that the balancing phrase adds propor-
tionately to the sense.

II.

Its Main Elements. — While it is impossible in so indi-
vidual an art to lay down directions whereby any writer may
secure a good prose rhythm, we may by description and
caution indicate its main features, from the phrasal segmen-
tation onwards, as suggested by the analogy of poetry, and
as differentiated therefrom.

The Phrase. — The rhythmical phrase in prose is the
groundwork of the whole web, corresponding to the phrasal
segmentation in poetry. The two are in fact the same in
principle, and reduced to notation by quantity marks show
no striking divergence. The prose phrase, being more sum-
marily enunciated, has a somewhat longer stride and perhaps
a greater variety in the feet. The main distinction, however,

214 DICTION.

is that the prose phrase holds watchfully to its single rhyth-
mical pattern, eschewing any beat regular enough for the ear
to anticipate, whether a conventional metre or a musical over-
tone. As soon as any such double scheme is suggested, the
tune must be modulated to something else.

Illustrations. — For some of the most exquisite specimens of rhyth-
mical prose we have but to go to the Authorized Version of the English
Bible. Professor Saintsbury instances 1 especially The Song of Solomon
viii. 6, 7. and 1 Corinthians xiii. The following, from Revelation (xxi. 3, 4),
is divided into feet and lines, in order to show its relation to poetic
rhythm : —

11 And I heard | a great voice | out of heaven | saying, || Behold, | the

tabernacle | of God | is with men, || and he | will dwell | with them, || and

they I shall be | his people, || and God | himself | shall be with them, || and

be I their G5d. || And Gdd | shall wipe | away ] all tears | from their eyes ; ||
3

and there shall be | no more death, || neither sorrow, | nor crying, || neither |
shall there be | any more pain : || *1 for the | former things | are passed |
away." ||

This is quite close to poetic rhythm, though never clearly suggesting a
metrical scheme. For a more varied phrase take the following from
Cardinal Newman, which is here left unmarked : —

" The season is chill and dark, and the breath of the morning is damp,
and worshippers are few ; but all this befits those who are by their profession
penitents and mourners, watchers and pilgrims. More dear to them that
loneliness, more cheerful that severity, and more bright that gloom, than
all those aids and appliances of luxury by which men nowadays attempt to
make prayer less disagreeable to them. True faith does not covet com-
forts ; they who realize that awful day, when they shall see Him face to
face whose eyes are as a flame of fire, will as little bargain to pray pleas-
antly now as they will think of doing so then." 2

In one or two places of this paragraph the ear is enticed very near to
the tune of a poetical rhythm, though the measure is broken up just in

time; e.g.

1 In his essay on English Prose Style, Miscellaneous Essays, p. 32.

2 Quoted by Matthew Arnold, Discourses in America, p. 141.

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE.

215

But the next clause " and more bright that gloom " restores the prose move-
ment. The first three clauses are similar, though here there is a decided
overtone of musical rhythm, which partly dispels the corrective and restor-
ing effect of the third clause ; thus : —

± 4

The

sea - son

chill

and

dark,

X 4 4

and the

4 4 4

breath of the

4 4 4

morn - ing is

damp,

J J

J I J

and

ship

pers

few.

The clause of the passage from Revelation beginning " and there shall be
no more death " has a musical reverberation, subdued and yet sublime,
which may perhaps be thus represented : —

IN IN N
* 0 4 4
And there shall

* J» J i

no more death, '

IN IN fN
1 if 4 S
nei - ther sor

- row

nor cry -

? i 1

ing,

1 IN IN ^ N
i 4 4 4 4
ei - ther shall there be

an - y

/ 1 J. x-

more | pain,

for the

1 1 IS 1
4 4 4

1 for - mer things

IN
4

are

passed a -

way.

This vigilance against metre aside, the writer's care, as
Stevenson puts it, is to keep " his phrases large, rhythmical,
and pleasing to the ear," giving each a finish in itself, and
a cadence that makes it flow smoothly into the next.

To this end, special care has to be given to the treatment
of monosyllables, in order to avoid the unwieldy congested
effect of tumbling accented or weighty words in heaps
together. It is useful here to study the offsetting effect of
the symbolics, which, being ordinarily unaccented, are a

216 DICTION.

great help in the joints and transitions of structure, to give
lightness and easy flow.

Examples. — In the sentence, " Good Lord, give us bread now," all the
words but " us " are emphatic, and the enunciation is heavy. So also the
sentence, " Think not that strength lies in the big round word," which is a
line of a poem designed to show the value of the monosyllable, is unrhyth-
mical because there is so little distribution of accent. On the other hand,
the monosyllabic line, u Bless the Lord of Hosts, for he is good to us," is
lightened up to an easy flow by the symbolics, the, of, for, is, to, which
alternate with the presentive words of the sentence.

Polysyllables, with their alternation of accented and
obscure sounds, are "phrases of Nature's own making," and
for this reason are very useful in the varied web of rhythm.
Herein lies, in part, the value of the more dignified Latin
element of the vocabulary, words from this source averag-
ing longer, and thus helping Volume of sense by volume of
sound.1 They lead also to the use, more frequent in prose
than in poetry, of the triplet, which grace of rhythm, adopted
from musical movement, may also in skilful hands be extended
to monosyllabic combinations.

Examples. — For variety yet evenness of flow, and for the skilful
employment of the triplet, let us take the following from Stevenson, the
more readily as he has so illumined the theory of rhythm : —

" A strange | picture | we make || on our way | *1 to our | chimaeras, ||
ceaselessly | marching, || grudging | ourselves | the time | for rest ; || Inde-
fatigable, | adventurous | pioneers. || It is true | that we shall never | reach

the goal ; || it is even | m5re than probable | that there Is | n5 such place ; ||

and If | we lived | for centuries || and were endowed | with the powers | of

a g5d, || we should find | ourselves | not much | nearer | 1 what we wanted ||
at the end. || O 1 | toiling hands | of mortals ! || O *1 | unwearied feet, |
travelling | ye kn5w not | whither ! || Soon, 1 | soon, "] | it seems to you, ||

1 See above, pp. 71, 94. " Racy Saxon monosyllables, close to us as touch and
sight, he will intermix readily with those long, savoursome, Latin words, ricli in
' second intention.' " — Pater on Style, Appreciations, p. 13.

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE. 217

you must come forth | on s5me | conspicuous | hilltop, || 1 and but | a little
way | further, || against | the setting | sun, **| || descry | the spires | of El |
Dorado. || Little | do ye know | your 5wn | blessedness ; || for to travel |

hopefully | *1 is a | better thing | than to arrive, || and the true | success |
is to labour." || x

The Clause. — This, which corresponds to the verse or line
in poetry, must in prose, in order to avoid monotony, be con-
tinually varied in length, being in this respect comparable to
the verse structure of the ode.2 In phrasing, too, there is a
special call for variety in successive lines, for it is in the
craving to make clauses echo each other that the tendency to
sing-song and to diluted phrase especially rises.

The balancing of clauses against each other, rhythmical
though not metrical, constitutes the Hebrew parallelism, the
basal principle of Hebrew poetry. A quasi-imitation of this
principle has been adopted by Walt Whitman, and could have
been carried to greater success than appears in his work, if
he had had a better ear for the rhythm of the constituent
phrase.

Example. — The following, from Walt Whitman's Song of the Open
Road, will show both his principle of clausal verse and the curious jumble
rhythm of phrase into which he is continually falling : —

" All parts away for the progress of souls,

All religion, all solid things, arts, governments — all that was or is apparent upon
this globe or any globe, falls into niches and corners before the procession of
souls along the grand roads of the universe.

Of the progress of the souls of men and women along the grand roads of the uni-
verse, all other progress is the needed emblem and sustenance.

Forever alive, forever forward,

Stately, solemn, sad, withdrawn, baffled, mad, turbulent, feeble, dissatisfied,

I Asperate, proud, fond, sick, accepted by men, rejected by men,

They go ! they go ! I know that they go, but I know not where they go,

Bat I know that they go toward the best — toward something great."8

1 Stevenson, El Dorado, Virginibus Puerisque, p. 109.

2 See above, p. 185.

8 Whitman, Leaves of Grass, p. 127.

218 DICTION.

The Sentence. — Concerning the rhythmical structure of the
sentence, which corresponds to the stanza in poetry, little of a
practical nature can be said ; not because the subject is bar-
ren, but because every writer must so truly work out the
pattern according to his own artistic insight. In one thing,
however, theorists are agreed : that the sentence has three
rhythmic divisions or stages, — a gradual rise to a pause or
culminating point, then a period of reposeful or level prog-
ress, then a cadence or graduated solution.1 Such graceful
management of sentences, in prose of the more pedestrian
type, may impart much of the sense of rhythm, even when
the balanced rhythm of clause and phrase is less marked.

Example. — The following sentence from Sir William Temple, with the
comment thereon is quoted from Professor Saintsbury : —

" ' When all is done, human life is at the greatest and the best but like
a froward child, that must be played with and humored a little to keep it
quiet till it falls asleep, and then the care is over.'

" Here the division is that which has been noted as the usual one in
eighteenth century prose, an arsis (to alter the use of the word a little) as
far as ' child,' a Jevel space of progress till ' asleep,' and then a thesis, here
unusually brief, but quite sufficient for the purpose. But here also the
movement is quite different from that of poetry. Part of the centre clause,
'but like a froward child that must be played with,' may indeed be twisted
into something like a heroic, but there is nothing corresponding to it earlier
or later, and the twisting itself is violent and unnatural." 2

Pause and Hiatus. — One of the important principles com-
ing into prosody from the rhythm of music is, that the pause
must be reckoned with. It has a distinctive value, expressed
in silence ; in other words, while the voice is waiting, the
music of the movement is going on. This applies equally to

1 In addition to the remark quoted from Professor Saintsbury in the text may be
quoted the following from Stevenson's essay (p. 247) already so extensively used :
" The true business of the literary artist is to plait or weave his meaning, involving
it around itself ; so that each sentence, by successive phrases, shall first come into a
kind of knot, and then, after a moment of suspended meaning, solve and clear itself."

2 Saintsbury, on English Prose Style, Miscellaneous Essays, p. 34.

RHYTHM IN POETRY AND IN PROSE. 219

verse and to prose, though in the measured rhythm and
musical lilt of the former its period is more calculable. To
manage it in prose, with its delicacies and compensations,
requires that same fineness of ear on which we must depend
for all faultless prose rhythm.

When there is no compensation, when the pause is un-
motived or inadvertent, it is called hiatus. Of this blemish
every ordinary ear is aware, though it may not perceive the
cause or even locate the fault ; there is a sense of jolting and
lack, as if some pin or fastening had fallen out. The ill man-
agement of the pause is the secret of much unmusical prose
which, tested merely by phrase and clause, seems to satisfy all
rhythmical requirements.

Examples of Pause. — In the passage from Revelation treated
musically on p. 215, two pauses of different lengths are very naturally
measured by the musical rhythm ; the pause before neither (marked by an
eighth rest 1 ), which amounts to the shortening of the succeeding syl-
lable ; and the pause after pain, which is a whole beat and an eighth rest
over.

In the example from Stevenson, p. 216, the pause with the word " Soon,
*1 soon, *1 " gives the word the value of a whole poetic foot.

Cadence. — It is at the end of a sentence or paragraph that
rhythm, or the lack of it, is especially noticeable. In such
places the ear requires that the sense be brought to a gradual
fall, not a sudden halt ; and the well-trained ear will graduate
the length of this fall to the amount of preparation that has
been made for it.1 It acts as a rhythmical unfolding of the
movement that the body of the sentence has involved in a
more or less complex progression, and thus is not merely an
idle embellishment but a means of giving impressiveness to
the whole current of the sentence.

EXAMPLES. — In the sentence from Sir William Temple, the words
" and then the care is over " form a beautiful brief cadence.

1 See this practically shown under Suspension, p. 286 below.

220

DICTION.

The following sentences illustrate the disagreeable sound of an abrupt
ending: "Famine, epidemics, raged"; "The soldier, transfixed by the
spear, writhed " ; " Achilles, being apprised of the death of his friend, goes
to the battle-field without armor, and, standing by the wall, shouts." All
these endings are felt to be bad, not because they are inaccurate, but
because they are too short ; we naturally require more volume, and more
graduation of accent and sound, in words that in themselves are so
important.

BOOK III. COMPOSITION.

Leaving now the subject of diction, which, it will be
remembered, centres mainly in words — their usages, their
shadings and connotations, their euphonic and rhythmic
potencies — we enter here upon a study of the processes
involved in putting words together, the constructive forms
we have in view being phrases, sentences, paragraphs. Our
problems now are problems not of material but of combina-
tion ; and the qualities we seek are, mainly, clearness in its
aspect of perspicuity, as promoted by the mutual relations of
words, and force in its aspect of emphasis, as promoted by
their relative positions.

The word composition, in the coming four chapters, is
employed in a somewhat restricted sense, carrying the mean-
ing, that is, only so far as we may regard the subject-matter
as already in hand, ready to be moulded into style. Beyond
that, in the consideration of theme, plan, and specific literary
forms, we are dealing with that larger stage of organism, that
work with the discovery and ordering of material, which we
call invention.

It is in composition that rhetoric shows its close relation-
ship to grammar, and at the same time its fundamental
advance beyond that science. Grammar deals with the laws
of correct expression ; which laws rhetoric must observe,
because correctness lies necessarily at the foundation of all
expression, rhetorical or other. But even in employing gram-
matical processes as working-tools, rhetoric imparts to them

222 COMPOSITION.

2l new quality distinctively rhetorical, the quality by which
they become methods in an art, means to an end. They are
viewed not for themselves, but for their adaptedness to the
requirements and capacities of a reader or hearer, — for their
power to act on men. In discussing them, therefore, we are
to approach each principle, so to say, on its operative side ;
to take it up not at all because it is grammar, but because
there is discerned in it a touch or strain of rhetoric.

CHAPTER VIII.

PHRASEOLOGY.

Rhetorically, we may regard as a phrase any combina-
tion of words moving together as a unit, as one element of
expression. We are not concerned with the question whether
it is prepositional, participial, or infinitive. It may for our
purpose be no more than a noun with its adjective ; it may
be as much as a sentence-member with its relative or con-
junction. In other words, the present chapter deals with ele-
ments of construction considered in their internal relations,
without reference to the completed product they make up as
joined together ; or rather, with those internal relations them-
selves, the organic laws according to which the unity of words
grows into the larger unity of the group.

I. SYNTACTICAL ADJUSTMENTS.

Not all, nor any considerable portion, of the field of syn-
tax need be traversed here ; it will be sufficient to bring
up merely some points wherein the grammatical principle
receives a special significance or modification from the rhe-
torical point of view.

Concord of Subject and Verb. — That a verb should agree
in number with its subject, and a pronoun with its antece-
dent, is a strict grammatical law ; rhetorically, however, the
question sometimes rises what is the number of the subject or
antecedent, a question to be answered by the logical sense.

i. The most prevalent error in concord, probably, is owing

223

224 COMPOSITION.

to haste ; the verb is made to agree with the nearest noun,
which, it may be, has stolen in between the subject and the
verb and attracted the latter to its own number.

Examples. — i. Of verb attracted to nearest noun. " The enormous ex-
pense of governments have provoked men to think, by making them feel " ;
"This large homestead, including a large barn and beautiful garden, are
to be sold next month."

2. Of subject obscured by intervening matter. " But these Personal
Memoirs of U. S. Grant, written as simply and straightforwardly as his
battles were fought, couched in the most unpretentious phrase, with never a
touch of grandiosity or attitudinizing, familiar, homely, even common in
style, is a great piece of literature, because great literature is nothing more
nor less than the clear expression of minds that have something great in
them, whether religion, or beauty, or deep experience."

If this be defended on the ground that the title of a book, though
plural in form, takes a singular verb, it may be answered that the author
(Howells) has made the subject plural by the word these.

2. As the word and adds two or more singular subjects
together, a plural verb is by rule required. Logically, how-
ever, these subjects may sometimes be merely synonyms for
the same thing ; sometimes they may be a closely connected
couple making up together a single idea ; in which cases the
singular verb is right. It should be noted that if a writer
ventures on this assertion of the singular he must be sure of
his case, for superficial appearances are against him.

Examples. — i. Of synonyms. "All the furniture, the stock of shops, the
machinery which could be found in the realm, was of less value than the
property which some single parishes now contain." Here the writer
(Macaulay) evidently views his three subjects as practically synonyms
describing the aspects of one single subject of remark.

2. Of combined couples. " The composition and resolution of forces was
largely applied by Newton " ; " The ebb and flow of the tides is now well
understood."

In the following, the author, Mrs. Phelps-Ward, having subjects in both
numbers, repeats the verb, and so gains emphasis, though grammatically
the repetition is not necessary : " The kindest of audiences, and my full
quota of encouragement, have not, and has not, been able to supply me

PHRASEOLOGY. 115

with the pluck required to add visibly to this number of public appear-
ances. Before an audience I am an abject coward, and I have at last
concluded to admit the humiliating fact."1

3. Another occasion for the writer to work by the logical
rather than by the grammatical interpretation of number is
the use of the collective noun. This may sometimes convey
the idea of the group as a unit, and accordingly be singular ;
and sometimes, bringing to mind its individual constituents,
be plural. The point is to be settled not arbitrarily but by
the most natural implication of the sense.

Examples. — "The Jewish people were all free." Here plurality pre-
dominates, the subject being the Jews regarded as individuals. — "An evil
and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign." Here the action is so
collective as to make a singular verb suitable.

In the following, the subject is so individualized in thought that the
singular verb sounds inappropriate : " The study of the moon's surface has
been continued now from the time of Galileo, and of late years a whole
class of competent observers has been devoted to it, so that astronomers
engaged in other branches have oftener looked on this as a field for occa-
sional hours of recreation with the telescope than made it a constant
study."

4. A clash of concord occurs when disjoined subjects (con-
nected, that is, by or or nor) are in different numbers, or so
numerous as to suggest not disjunction but plurality. In
such cases use, where possible, a form of the verb which is
the same for either number (the auxiliary forms are especially
useful here) ; failing this, it is better to change the construc-
tion of the sentence than to fight for either the singular or
the plural.

Examples. — " Neither money nor brilliant endowments was (or were ?)
of use in this crisis; he could only be still and endure." Instead of this
verb say " could avail," and the clash is evaded. — " Only a few, perhaps
only one, were (or was ?) benefited." Say rather, " received any benefit."

In the following, where, " though the verb should formally be singular,

1 Quoted from McClure^s Magazine, Vol. vii, p. 78.

226 COMPOSITION.

still the number of alternate subjects is strongly suggestive of plurality,'
the difficulty is evaded, as above, by a neutral verb: —

" truths that wake,

To perish never ;
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor,

Nor Man nor Boy,
Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
Can utterly abolish or destroy ! " 1

The Scheme of Tense. — The tenses of the verbs in any pas-
sage form together a scheme of tense, past, present, or future,
which controls the time in which, relatively, all the action is
thought of as taking place.

5. Dependent clauses and infinitives, therefore, are not in
an absolute but a relative tense ; they count the time of their
action from that of the principal assertion.

Examples. — " Last week I intended to have written" This is wrong,
because at the time referred to " to write " was the purpose ; " to wrrite " is
therefore the proper infinitive relative to "intended." — " In the same way,
I cannot excuse the remissness of those whose business it should have
been to have interposed their good offices " ; " There were two circumstances
which made it necessary for them to have lost no time," — ought to be " to
interpose," " to lose."

" And so, you see, the thing never would have been looked into at all
if I had n't happened to have been (say rather " to be ") down there."

In the use of the verb " should like " the mistake is very commonly
made of interchanging the tense of the principal verb and the infinitive, —
" / should like to have seen him," instead of " I should have liked to see
him." This is owing, no doubt, to the difficulty of pronouncing " lik^
to" when they are placed together ; a difficulty, however, which should not
be allowed to make the difference between accuracy and error. The fol-
lowing sentence, from Howells, illustrates the correct use : " There were
some questions that she would have liked to ask him ; but she had to content
herself with trying to answer them when her husband put them to her."

6. An exception obtains in the case of general and univer-
sal truths, which, as being essentially timeless, require the
present tense, whatever the tense of the accompanying verbs.

1 Wordsworth, Ode on Intimations of Immortality, st. ix.

PHRASEOLOGY. 227

Examples. — " In the past century some learned gentlemen discovered
that there was (say rather is) no God"; "He always maintained with
unshaken faith that honesty is the best policy."

7. When the historic present (see above, p. 98) is used, it
should be kept in a scheme of its own, and not unadvisedly
mixed with the past of ordinary narrative.

Example. — In the following passage, if the tenses are used of pur-
pose, there is at least a bewildering mixture of the present and past
schemes : —

' The Romans now turn aside in quest of provisions. The Helvetians
mistook the movement for retreat. They pursue, and give Caesar his
chance. They fight at disadvantage, and after a desperate struggle are
defeated."

The idle mixture of historic present and past is very common with
inexperienced writers and writers without imagination.

The Participial Phrase. — The participial phrase, equivalent
to a clause, is a very convenient means of subordinating one
assertion to another, thus avoiding the too frequent use of
principal verbs. By its agency conditions, modifications,
bits of portrayal may be introduced unobtrusively, without
obscuring the current of principal assertion. But some cau-
tions are needed in the use of it ; it is peculiarly liable to
slipshodness.

8. The participle presupposes a subject to which it relates.
This subject, which is generally the subject of the sentence,
should be expressed, and the relation of the participle to it
should be unambiguous and, if possible, uninterrupted. Ordi-
narily, too, the subject should have a prominent place in its
clause, being the point of reference for the phrase ; sometimes,
however, when there is no reasonable danger of ambiguity,
it may have a less prominent position, though not remain
jnexpressed.

EXAMPLES. — I. Of the misrelated participle. "Being exceedingly
ond of birds, an aviary is always to be found in the grounds." Here

228 COMPOSITION.

there is no clue to the person or persons fond of birds ; grammatically the
only word to which the participle may be attached is aviary. — " While
visiting St. Louis with him while he was President, he made a character-
istic remark showing how little his thoughts dwelt upon those events of
his life which made such a deep impression upon others." Here the one
who was visiting St. Louis does not appear; the sentence should be either
" While I was visiting, ... he made," or, " While visiting, . . . I heard
him make a remark."

2. As soon as the participle is made to refer to the object of the sen-
tence or, still more, to a possessive, the ambiguity and slipshodness
appear; e.g. "At three o'clock the Queen received an address from the
tenants on the Sandringham estate, having {i.e. they) been introduced to
her Majesty's presence by General Sir Dighton Probyn " ; " Having so
lately quitted the tumults of a party and the intrigues of a court, they {viz.
tumults and intrigues) still kept his thoughts in agitation, as the sea fluc-
tuates a while when the storm has ceased." 1

3. In the following the placing of the subject in a less prominent posi-
tion, being unsuggestive of ambiguity, is a grace : " Writing for a livelihood,
a livelihood is all that I have gained; for, having also something better in
view, and never, therefore, having courted popularity, nor written for the
mere sake of gain, it has not been possible for me to lay by anything."

9. Akin to the misrelated participle, though not ambigu-
ous, is the ^//related participle, the subject being omitted as
obvious, or not important to the expression ; a construction
that is encroaching in the language, and has usefulness, though
it needs caution as a concession to looser construction.

Example. — "Any one of all these is a fit character to be assumed as
the speaking subject of a psalm, understanding by such a composition the
outpouring of the soul's fulness to God." 2 Here the one who does the
" understanding " is wholly vague, probably whoever is concerned with
the fact asserted. Obviously this construction, so loose and sprawling,
needs watching ; as it is, it just escapes being connected with " any one "
or "speaking subject," which in fact it is grammatically. De Quincey is
said to have introduced this usage.

10. As the participial phrase is really a condensed clause,
it must, with the substance of the clause, retain also its con-

1 Examples under 2 quoted from Earle, English Prose, p. 187.

2 Robertson, The Poetry and the Religion of the Psalms, p. 321.

PHRA SEOLOG Y. 119

nections : the conjunction if the clause is conjunctional, the
subject or its representative if the clause is pronominal.
Sometimes these naturally suggest themselves and may be left
to implication ; but at all events the participial construction
should be tested for clearness.

Examples. — i. The most natural implication of the participle when
left to itself is cause or reason, as, " Being of a musical turn of mind, he
has collected a large number of musical classics," where something like
because is understood with " being." If, however, some other connection
is intended, it must ordinarily be expressed ; the line, " France at our
doors, he sees no danger nigh," where the connection is " though France
is at our doors," is somewhat obscure, and admissible only by poetic
license. — " Republics in the first instance, are never desired for their own
sakes. I do not think they will finally be desired at all, unaccompanied
by courtly graces and good breeding." Here there is enough uncertainty
between because and if as connectives of " unaccompanied " to make
expression of the real connection desirable; either "if unaccompanied,"
or " unaccompanied as they are, by," etc.

2. The first example under 2, ^ 8, is an instance where the subject,
not being the same as the subject of the sentence, needs to accompany its
participle: "they having been introduced," equivalent to "who were intro-
duced." This retention of the subject with a participle brings us to a new
construction here to be considered.

11. The pendent participle, or participle absolute, a con-
struction derived from the Latin ablative absolute, is perhaps
the loosest of the participial constructions, and needs especial
caution on this ground. As it is essentially parenthetical, it
ought, like all parentheses, to be made as brief and rapid as may
be, and not to disturb the natural solution of the sentence.

Example. — The following participle absolute is faulty in both these
particulars, — it is long and heavy, and it makes an unprepared-for turn at
"the ministers" after having seemed to promise a sentence with "The
Duke of Wellington" as subject: "The Duke of Wellington having
failed to form a government of declared anti-reformers, ready to devise a
measure of reform at once satisfactory to the people and to the House of
Lords, the ministers were recalled." 1

1 Quoted from Earle, English Prose, p. 188.

230 COMPOSITION.

The Infinitive. — Two points about the rhetorical usage of
the infinitive, both by way of caution, call here for notice.

12. The use of the so-called "split infinitive," that is, the
insertion of an adverb between the sign of the infinitive (to)
and its verb, the tendency to which is on the increase, is
much objected to by purists, and is in fact a shibboleth of
second-rate style. With this estimate of its present status,
we leave the writer to take his own risks.

Examples. — " It has been left for the ' Challenger' expedition to fully
establish the truth of this conjecture " ; " It will be interesting to see
whether, when his own private squabbles are all fought out, he will have
sufficient energy left to any longer play the part of censor for the public
good " ; "I have far too high an appreciation of the work they have
done to in any way interfere with their independence" ; "The Judge
refused delay, and ordered a writ of attachment to immediately be issued."
— In the third of these examples the splitting adverb is a whole phrase.1

A word, however, about its effects, good and bad. It has
the ill effect of dividing a very close relation, almost like
dividing a compound word ; further, it surrenders the effort
to place the adverb according to its rightful stress, that is,
before or after the verb, seeming in fact to dump the adverb
down merely to get rid of it. This is probably the cause
of its peculiarly crude effect. On the other hand, the split
infinitive is in the line of the prevailing instinct for lucidity ;
there is one situation, too, namely, when the adverb is sug-
gestive of another modification if placed before the verb, and
separates the verb from a complex object if placed after,
where there is real color for the construction. At present,
however, it should at best be reserved for the exceptional
case where the use distinctly outweighs the disadvantage.

Example. — From Professor Earle : " The next example is one of
class which affords evidence that this innovation has been induced by the

1 For a discussion of this encroaching usage, from which the above-given exam-
ples are quoted, see Earle, English Prose, pp. 182-186.

PHRASE OLOGY. 231

lengthening of the evolute processes ; — for I presume no one would say, ' I
want you to carefully examine this ' instead of ' to examine this carefully.'
When, therefore, Mr. Ebblewhite writes, ' I have to advise Mr. Donnelly
to carefully examine the documents to which I refer,' — we see that the
verbal object with its evolute clause (viz. ' the documents to which I
refer ') claiming proximity to its governing verb (viz. ' examine ') has been
the cause of the novel placement of the Adverb."

13. Where several infinitives occur in sequence, the word
on which each one depends is to be made obvious. Care in
this respect is demanded by the fact that an infinitive follow-
ing another may with equal correctness be either subordinate
to or coordinate with the other; its office and rank should
therefore be made evident.

Note. — One or two aids to clearness may be mentioned. Two infini-
tives coordinate with each other may be closely connected by omitting the
preposition to with the second. The dependence of infinitives may often
be made clear by distinguishing between the infinitive of sequence (to)
and the infinitive of purpose (in order to).

The following, with its comment, is taken from Abbot's How to Write
Clearly : " 'He said that he wished to take his friend with him to visit the
capital and to study medicine.' Here it is doubtful whether the meaning
is —

" ' He said that he wished to take his friend with him,
" (r) and also to visit the capital and study medicine ' or
" (2) • that his friend might visit the capital and might also study medi-
cine,' or
" (3) ' on a visit to the capital, and that he also wished to study medi-
cine.' "

If in these examples we adopt the two aids above mentioned, the sen-
tence becomes, " He said that he wished to take his friend with him in
order to visit the capital and /\ study medicine," which gives clear sense in
one aspect. For other senses it may be necessary to use that he might for
to, or to insert conjunctions.

A neglect of the true relation of infinitives is shown in the common
expression to " try and do" something. Here the two verbs are treated
as if they were coordinate ; whereas the second depends on the first, and
the expression should be " try to do."

232 COMPOSITION.

II. THREE IDIOMS.

Of the great store of idioms that give life and flavor to the
English language,1 three are here selected for special treat-
ment ; and this for two reasons : first, because, accurately
observed, they impart a delicacy of coloring and implication
which the language can ill afford to spare ; and secondly,
because the wholesale disregard of all three, already widely
prevalent in popular writing, has been advocated by facile
writers too careless or too lazy to master their subtleties.
Like all resources of the literary art, however, these idioms
are to be reckoned with. If they are puzzling, so much the
greater call for thorough study of them ; and not to know
them, or to despise their superfineness of shading, discredits
not them but the too willing neglecter.

The Subjunctive. — As the name indicates, this is the mood
of a verb subjoined to another, as a condition or some kind of
limitation. In form, it is distinguished from the indicative
merely by taking the form of the plural for both numbers ;
except in the verb to be, where in the present it adopts the
form be. In the past tense, except in the verb to be (were),
the subjunctive has no distinctive form.

14. In the present tense, the chief use of the subjunctive,
as distinguished from the indicative, is this : that while the
indicative throws stress on what the supposition is, the sub-
junctive makes prominent the fact that it is a supposition.

Examples. — "No man can do these miracles that thou doest, except
God be with him " ; " If he be the rightful owner, the property shall be
delivered to him " j "I am at a loss to know whether this be so or not."
— In all these examples, we are simply aware that the condition or suppo-
sition is made, and is a supposition, implying, however, nothing decisive as
to whether it is or is not accordant with fact.

1 For the Tissue of Idiom in English, see above, p. 53.

PHRASEOLOGY, 233

15. In the past tense, the subjunctive adds to the sense of
supposition the further implication that the supposition is
contrary to fact. When this implication is not rightly made,
the indicative is better in modern prose ; some survivals of
old usage, where the past subjunctive is used for a neutral
supposition, sound estranging.

Examples. — 1. "If he were here [but he is not], he would give no
light on these perplexing facts " ; " If he was here [and supposedly he
was], he must have left some traces of his presence "; " Were it written
in a thousand volumes [though in fact it is not], I would not believe it " ;
" Thou couldst have no power at all against me except it were [= if it
were not, though in fact it is] given thee from above." In this last exam-
ple we reach this contrary implication by a kind of double negative.

2. The following illustrate the obsolete effect of using the past sub-
junctive as a neutral supposition when the supposition is according to
actual fact : " Though he were a king, yet learned he obedience " ; " Well,
but what harm had come of it all ? Louie was a strong lass now, if she
were a bit thin and overgrown. David was as fine a boy as anyone need
wish to see."1 — On the other hand, if the supposition is contrary to fact,
the indicative sounds raw and crude ; e.g. " It is time some contempt was
shown to ladies : they have shown it to servants long enough." It is in
cases like this last that the indicative is most actively supplanting the
subjunctive.

Shall and Will. — The forms shall and. will, with their pret-
erites should and would, which are used as auxiliaries of the
future tense, retain in addition to their future meaning a
coloring derived from the original meaning of the words.
This coloring is always present, though in some cases it so
blends with the future sense as to be practically one with it.
For fine rhetorical tact, however, recognition of the original
implication, with its exact shading of effect, is important to
the writer's outfit.

" The radical signification of will (Anglo-Saxon, willati) is
purpose, intention, determination ; that of shall (Anglo-Saxon

1 Mks. Humphry Ward, David Gri*vttp. 38.

234 COMPOSITION.

seed/, ought) is obligation."1 To these root-meanings we
trace the rationale of usage in the different persons.

1 6. The auxiliary of the simple future, —

I shall, We shall,

You will, I |

He will, She will, It will, They will,—

becomes such because when unemphatic the primary meaning
blends with the sense of futurity and is disregarded : in the
first person (s/ia//), because obligation predicated of one's self
may be taken as implying that what ought to be will be ; in
the second and third persons (will), because it is a natural
courtesy to assume that a person who purposes will carry out
his plans. The primary meaning, however, is very near the
surface ; as soon, in fact, as the auxiliary becomes emphatic,
as it were asserting itself, or the future force is pressed into
the background by a condition, or a dependent clause, or an
interrogation, the original force of the auxiliary emerges and
makes itself felt.

Examples. — The simple future, as, "I shall be in New York next
Wednesday," or, " It will be a fair day to-morrow," with the latent sense
of obligation or purpose disregarded, needs no comment. When, however,
we say, " He will go, in spite of all I can say," where the auxiliary has the
stress ; or " If ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come,"
where the auxiliary is in a conditional clause ; or " Shall I undertake this
responsibility ? " " Will he assent to your proposal ? " where the auxiliary
is in a question, we have the sense of more than future implied ; the
original meaning has come to color it.

1 7. The auxiliary of the colored or connotative future, —

I will, We will,

You shall,

He shall, She shall, It shall, They shall, —

imparts its primary sense to the verb : purely in the first
person {will, purpose) ; with implication of the speaker's

1 Quoted from White, Words and their Uses, p. 266.

PHRASEOLOGY. 235

authority imposed as obligation in the second and third
persons (shall), having, according to circumstances, various
degrees of effect, from absolute command to threat, decree,
fate, or certain prophecy.

Examples. — The commandments are put thus in the absolute form:
" Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." " The man
shall suffer for this insult " implies a threat ; " all manner of sin and
iniquity shall be forgiven " conveys assurance and certainty ; " the ele-
ments shall melt with fervent heat " is a prophecy. In the sentence, " The
style shall be simple and familiar : but style is the image of character ; and
the habits of correct writing may produce, without labor or design, the
appearance of art and study," which is written by Gibbon concerning the
style of his projected autobiography, the shall implies that the speaker
imposes something on himself as an obligation or imperative duty. All
these grow directly out of the primary sense of ought-ness or obligation
involved in shall.

1 8. In the literary use of these auxiliaries there are some
interesting reversals ; of which two may be noted.

When the authority to command is absolute and unques-
tioned, as for instance in military orders, the absolute shall
is by courtesy softened to will, with fine implication thus
secured both as to the commander's non-assertion of author-
ity and the other's readiness to obey.

When, as in a citation or example, the future sense is sec-
ondary, the will of the second or third person is changed to
shall, with implication thus secured of certainty or univer-
sality, — perhaps the most finely drawn and delicate application
of the idiom.

Examples. — i. When an order is given, "At nine o'clock Colonel M.
will occupy the R. cross-roads," the assertion of command is waived, while
it is assumed that obedience is sure and willing.

2. " You shall see a man readily ascertain every herb of the field, yet
hardly know wheat from barley, or at least one sort of wheat or barley
from another." l — " But this is not unsuitable to the illustration of the

1 Whitk, Natural History of Selbornc, p. 222.

236 COMPOSITION.

fervent Bunyan, breathing hurry and momentary inspiration. He, with his
hot purpose, hunting sinners with a lasso, shall himself forget the things
that he has written yesterday. He shall first slay Heedless in the Valley
of the Shadow, and then take leave of him talking in his sleep, as if noth-
ing had happened, in an arbor on the Enchanted Ground."1

Connotation of the Relative. — The difficulty of this idiom is,
that while the connotation involved is real and constant,
there is so much exception to the standard manner of
expressing it that the rule itself, unless it be observed as a
felt principle, is apt to be obscure.

19. The relatives who, which, and that, besides representing
their antecedent in a further assertion, connote also the fact
that the new assertion either adds to the information given by
the antecedent clause, or by some sort of restriction completes
it. This distinction is present to the sense, whether brought
out in expression or not.

Typically, the relatives who and which assume that the
antecedent is fully denned in sense, their office being to
introduce additional information about it. They may accord-
ingly be called the additive relative, and are equivalent to a
demonstrative with a conjunction: "and he," "and this,"
"and these."

The relative that assumes that its antecedent is not yet
fully denned, its office being to complete or restrict its mean-
ing. It may accordingly be called the restrictive relative,
and may generally be represented, by way of equivalent, by
an adjectival or participial phrase.

Examples. — 1. Of the Additive Relative. "But flesh with the life
thereof, which [= and this] is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat."2
Here the relative clause makes a new assertion ; it might be left out ar
the rest of the sentence would be complete in sense.

2. Of the Restrictive Relative. " I was in the open air all day, and die
no thought that I could avoid, and I think I have got my head between

1 Stevenson, Bagstcr 's Pilgrim 's Progress, Works, Vol. xxii, p. 223.

2 Genesis ix. 4.

sen

PHRASE OLOGY. 23 7

my shoulders again ; however, I am not going to do much." 1 Here the
antecedent is not complete in sense without the definition that the relative
clause gives ; not thought (or thinking) in general, but merely such thought
as he could avoid, is the subject of remark. The adjectival phrase "avoid-
able by me " would be nearly an equivalent for the relative clause.

3, Of the two in one sentence. " The peace that was now made, which
is known as the Peace of Westphalia, made some important changes in
Europe." Here the ///^-clause completes the sense of the antecedent,
while the which-clause relates a new fact about it. — Notice the difference
of implication between the relatives of the following : " Fetch me the
books that lie on the table, and the pamphlets, which you will find on the
floor."

Note. — A coordinative or additive clause is generally set off by a
comma ; a restrictive clause is not.

20. There are certain cases where the word that, though
the proper relative for restriction, is not available, and the
relative who or which has to take its place and assume the
restrictive sense. In these cases the reader is left to make
for himself the adjustment in the function of the relative,
while the form is waived to suit requirements of euphony or
clearness that are more imperative.

The Principal Cases of this Kind. — The following are the chief
exceptions to the use of that as restrictive relative, under the two heads of
Euphony and Clearness.

I. Euphony.

1. As the word that is not only a relative but also a demonstrative, a
pronominal adjective, and a conjunction, it is apt to get in the way, and
the word which is used to avoid the accumulation of thats. For example,
when the antecedent is that: "It is that which I detest" {that that will
not do) ; when the antecedent is modified by that : " That remark which 1
made yesterday " ; when a conjunctive that occurs near: "And there can
be found other passages which show that it was a common and popular
custom" (that show that is both uneuphonious and grammatically awkward).

2. Which or who is often used when the words this, these, those, they
Come near as antecedents, because the /// sounds so close to each other are

' Stevenson, LetUrs% Vol. i, p. 68.

238 COMPOSITION.

disagreeable : " Those who go must be well provided with wraps." This,
however, is a somewhat modern refinement and not very pressing. Such
expressions as " These thzX have turned the world upside down are come
hither also," "those ///at look out of the windows be darkened," do not
disturb a wholesome sense of euphony.

3. That sounds ill when separated from its verb or its antecedents and
made a pause-word : " There are many persons that, though unscrupulous,
are commonly good-tempered, and that, if not strongly incited by self-
interest, are ready for the most part to think of the interest of their neigh-
bors." Here who would make a better pause-word.

4. As the word that cannot be preceded by a preposition, whom or
which is sometimes used, though restrictive, in order to avoid sending the
preposition to the end of the clause : " That was a dignity to which he
could not aspire," instead of " that he could not aspire to." — A few words
about this construction are needed here, because of the indiscriminate
advice that is sometimes given, on the ground that, as some one has incon-
sistently expressed it, " a preposition is a poor word to end a sentence
with." The fact is, much depends on the effect. A long preposition, or a
preposition that may also be an adverb, sounds cumbrous at the end ; e.g.
" Such were the prejudices that he rose above" " this is the mark that I
jumped beyond." On the other hand, the construction with which is more
formal, less conversational ; e.g. " This is the rule to which I adhere," — in
talk we say, " this is the rule I adhere to," " these are the principles to live
by." The prepositions to, for, of, on, with, and by are sent freely to the end
of their clause, and with good conversational effect. The following is per-
haps an extreme example : " It seemed to be one of those facts of existence
that she could not get used to, nor find anywhere in her brisk, fiery little
body a grain of cool resignation for." — Here is the way Browning uses it
in poetry : —

" That was the bench they sat on, — there 's the board
They took the meal at, — yonder garden-ground
They leaned across the gate of." *

II. Clearness.

ike

5. The word who is used restrictively instead of that in order to make
clear the gender of the antecedent, with such words as many, others, sev-
eral, those. For example : " There are many millions in India who would
be utterly unable to pay a fine of fifty rupees." If in this case the ante-
cedent were clear, the restrictive form would be more appropriate, as,

1 Browning, The Ring and the Book, Book v, 11. 1256-1258.

PHRASE OLOGY. 239

"There are many millions of persons in India that" etc. So when with
these pronominal adjectives things are meant, we say not "all which,"
" much which," but " all that" " much that."

21. While the relative connotes addition or restriction, it
does not always give these implications with the proper em-
phasis or tenuity of stress ; it is in this respect a somewhat
unwieldy construction. For this reason it is important to
have at command the various equivalents for the relative.

Equivalents for the Relative. — The following are the common-
est equivalents for the relative, classified according to the object sought in
the employment of them.

I. For Augmentation of Stress.

i. Sometimes, instead of the additive relative, its equivalent, a demon-
strative with a conjunction, will better bring out the importance of the
statement ; e.g. " Only a few presidents oppose fraternities to-day ; who
[better and these] are in most cases heads of universities, where the need
of Greek letter societies is not so evident as in colleges generally."

2. The restrictive relative introducing a negative statement is weak;
the statement may be much strengthened by using the word but as a rela-
tive, which changes the statement to affirmative : " It has no defects but
such as can be remedied in succeeding volumes," is stronger than " It has
no defects that cannot be remedied in succeeding volumes." " There is no
moral rule but bends [= that does not bend] to circumstances."

II. For Attenuation of Stress.

3. The relative may be condensed by being combined, in the same
word, with a preposition, or with its antecedent. Thus wherein, whereby,
may be used for in which, by which : " Great virtues often save, and
always illustrate the age and nation wherein they appear."

" Yet all experience is an arch wherethro '
Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move."

— What, the so-called double relative, being really relative and antecedent
in one, is a useful equivalent for that which, those which : " Let me repeat
to you what 1 have often said, that what is worth doing at all is worth
doing well."

240 COMPOSITION.

4. The relative is often omitted to advantage, when it is the object of a
verb (less often of a preposition), and when the omission brings the ante-
cedent and the relative clause in juxtaposition : " Dickens's acting was a
part of himself. He threw himself thoroughly into the character ^ he was
impersonating, and thus made it real." — When, however, the antecedent
and the relative clause are not brought into juxtaposition thereby, the
relative will not so well bear omission. Example : " As for actresses, it
surely would be the height of ungenerosity to blame a woman for follow-
ing the only profession commanding fame and fortune /\ the kind consid-
eration of man has left open to her." Here the phrase "commanding
fame and fortune," between the antecedent and the relative clause, dis-
turbs the reference, and the relative should be retained.1

5. In the case of the restrictive relative, the restriction may be made
more attenuated and unobtrusive by reducing the relative clause to a
phrase, or to a clause of more subordinated type. The following are
some aspects of this : —

a. A participle may thus be employed instead of the relative with princi-
pal verb; as: "We shall briefly run over the events attending (— that
attended) the conquest made (= that was made) by that empire."

b. In some cases the infinitive makes a convenient equivalent; as:
" He was the first to enter" (= that entered).

c. A conditional or //-clause may put the substance of a relative clause
into less prominent relation ; as : " If a man does not care for music, he
is to be pitied" ( = The man that does not care, etc.). It is in long sen-
tences that this equivalent will be found most useful.2

III. COLLOCATION.

The English syntax, being devoid of the aid that inflection
would give in showing the mutual relations of words, is cor-
respondingly more dependent on order and collocation. It
depends on these first of all for clearness, for unless a modi-
fying element is carefully placed some word is liable, coming
between it and its principal, to steal its real connection.
Secondly, the quality of force has its claims ; for as the same
element may be emphatic in one position and comparatively

1 For other cases of omission of relative, see above, p. 142, and below, p. 301.

2 For the relative and its equivalents, see Abbott, How to Write Clearly,
pp. 17-19; Bain, Composition Grammar, pp. 63-815.

PHRASEOLOGY, 241

insignificant in another, much of the writer's study is natu-
rally devoted to placing elements where they will have just
the stress intended, whether weighty or slight.

To preclude Ambiguity. — Ambiguity, as has been denned
earlier,1 is the suggestion of two possible meanings, between
which the reader's mind is left uncertain. It may come about
through the choice of a word faulty in meaning ; oftener,
however, it is incurred by faulty collocation of elements.
The cases most requiring watchfulness against ambiguity are
here given.

22. Of single words, the one that requires most care in
placing, and that is oftenest misplaced, is only. The diffi-
culty arises from the fact that only may be equally well
attached to substantives, adjectives, verbs, or adverbs; to
words, phrases, and clauses ; and so if it is separated from its
principal, something that can usurp its relation is almost sure
to intervene. It is true that the word is so often misplaced
that readers adjust it mentally to the modification intended ;
but this is no reason for placing it carelessly ; as a rule it
should be placed, if possible, immediately before the word or
construction to which it belongs.

Examples. — " Daddy was only good when he was happy ; and at
other times he dipped reckless-ly into vices which would have been the
ruin of them all had they been persistent." 2 Strictly, this means Daddy
was no more than good; that is, the word "good" has usurped its attach-
ment ; the order should be " only when he was happy," the only being
immediately before the phrase it modifies.

Sometimes the word only is used -with an intended backward reference ;
and this it can have when nothing comes after to steal it; as "standing
room only." Notice the ambiguity of the following : " New Huguenot
churches are springing up on all sides, often in places where Protestant wor-
ship has been abolished for over two hundred years. In two departments
itral France only forty-five villages have since January besought the

1 See above, under Qualities <>i Style, pp. 31, 32.

2 Mrs. Humphry Ward, David Grieve, p. 163.

242 COMPOSITION.

Huguenot societies for regular Protestant services." 1 The word alone
used for such cases.

23. Peculiarly liable to ambiguity are what may be termec
the swivel particles, such adverbs as at least, at all events, per
haps, indeed, in fact ; because, as their office is to set off sen
tence-members, they are apt to come between two emphatic
elements, where their influence may be reckoned either back
ward or forward. Accordingly, they should always be testec
for ambiguity before their place is finally decided upon.

Examples. — "I think you will find my Latin exercise, at all events, a:
good as my cousin's." Does this mean, " My Latin exercise, at all events
I think," etc., or, " as good as my cousin's, at all events " ? Either of thes<
orders would be unambiguous. — " Disturbance was not indeed infrequently
caused by the summary arrest of fugitive slaves in various parts of the
North." Better : " Not infrequently, indeed, disturbance was caused," etc

24. A modifying phrase, like a modifying word, is either
an adjective or an adverb ; and in placing it a test should b(
made that no substantive comes in to steal the adjectival rela
tion, no verb (or adverb, or participle, or adjective) to stea
the adverbial. This is especially important where severa[
phrases have to be grouped round one central attachment.
No rule can be laid down for the relative order of phrases
except to be watchful of the interior of phrases for words
that may form a new nucleus of modification ; it is careless
ness in this regard that produces the most ludicrous effects
in collocation.

Examples. — 1. Of an intervening noun. " And worst of all, the heavy
pall hangs over all the land of Birmingham smoke, which, with a northerly
wind, blots all the color out of the country, turns the blue sky to a dull
brown, makes dusky shadows under the elm tops, and hides the distance
in a thin veil of London fog." Here the part between the noun and its
genitival phrase contains a word (" land ") that produces confusion ; it
might be read "land of Birmingham smoke." — A question of stress comes
up here which will be adverted to later ; see page 246, 29.

1 From a newspaper.

PHRASEOLOGY. 243

2. Of intervening phrases containing verbs. " Base-ball managers must
look at this pleasant weather and think of the opportunity they have let
slip to fill their coffers to overflowing with anything hit pleasure." Here
the attachment of the last phrase is meant for " think," but it seems to
belong to " fill," a verb that has slipped into an intervening phrase. The
same faults are seen in the following : " Sir Morton Peto spoke of the
notion that the national debt might be repudiated with absolute contempt."
" People have been crying out that Germany never could be an aggressive
power a great deal too soon." " It is curious to see how very little is said on
the subject treated in the present essay, by the great writers on jurisprudence ."

25. In making up sentences of principal and dependent
clauses, the writer should note how far the influence of such
particles as if, unless, though, that, while, whereas, and the like
extends ; they may by the conjunction and have the range of
more than one clause, and need to be arrested if such range
is not intended. The rule is to keep the principal assertions
and the dependent clauses clearly separate from one another.

Examples. — " The lesson intended to be taught by these manoeuvres
will be lost, if the plan of operations is laid down too definitely before-
hand, and the affair degenerates into a mere review." Is the coordinate
here " the lesson . . . will be lost . . . and the affair degenerates," that
is, two principal assertions paired together, or, "if the plan . . . and [if]
the affair," etc. ? Put the z/"-clause first, and one sense of the sentence is
made clear, the principal assertions being by themselves ; put the word so
or thus in place of the bracketed if above, and the influence of the if is
arrested. — "Our critics appear to be fascinated by the quaintness of our
public, as the world is when our beast-garden has a new importation of
magnitude, and the creature's appetite is reverently consulted."1 Plere the
influence of as is not properly arrested at the beginning of the next clause.
— A ///^/-clause within a ///^-clause is apt to give trouble ; e.g. " Some
faint elements of reason being discernible in the brute, it is not enough to
prove that a. process is not a process of reason, that something approaching
to it is seen in the brute." Here a recast is needed, beginning, " The fact*
that something approaching reason ... is not enough," etc.

To concentrate Stress. — For every element in the sentence
there is an ordinary or typical position, where it performs its

1 Meredith, Essay on Comedy, p. 99.

244 COMPOSITION.

function principal or subordinate without attracting special
attention to itself. The problem how to concentrate stress
on any such element is therefore merely some form of the
problem how and where to remove it from its regular posi-
tion ; to the solution of which problem it is necessary not
only to know what is normal, what unusual in an element's
position, but also to have a cultivated sense of the effect of
every smallest change in placement. This cannot come by
any formal theory ; it must be a tact.

26. The natural position of the simple adjective is before
its noun. This order of collocation is so well established
that " marked divergencies arrest the attention, and have, by
reason of their exceptional character, a force that may be con-
verted into a useful rhetorical effect." The occasional putting
of the adjective after the noun, " one of the traces which early
French culture has left on our literature," is a grace of style
in cases where the noun has been sufficiently emphasized and
can afford to throw the stress on the modification. When there
is a group of adjectives, or when the adjective is modified by
a phrase, the place after the noun is quite natural.

Examples. — It will be seen in the following examples how the interest
centres in the quality rather than in the thing qualified. " But at last, and
even here, it seemed as if the years of this loyal and eager poet had felici-
ties too many.'1'' — "Having been successively subject to all these influ-
ences, our language has become as it were a sort of centre to which
beauties the most opposite converge." In this latter example the adjunct j
of the adjective makes its position after the noun more nearly a matter of
course. — In the next example the noun is already so taken for granted
that all the interest centres rather in its adjectives, which accordingly take
the stress place : " The crowd round a couple of dogs fighting is a crowd
'masculine mainly, with an occasional active, compassionate woman, flutter-
ing wildly round the outside, and using her tongue and hands freely upon
the men, as so many 'brutes ' ; it is a crowd annular, compact, and mobile ;
a crowd centripetal, having its eyes and its heads all bent downwards and
inwards, to one common focus." 1

1 Dr. John Brown, Rab and his Friends.

PHRASEOLOGY. 245

27. When, besides the adjective, the noun has belonging to
it an article, demonstrative, or possessive, the position of this
latter is next the adjective, with at most an adverb between.
There is a tendency, due to recent German influence, to en-
cumber the adjective with adjuncts of its own, — a construc-
tion which packs away material into an unobtrusive position,
but produces a lumbering effect unfriendly to free movement
and ease.

Examples. — "I have now travelled through nearly every Department
in France, and I do not remember ever meeting with a dirty bed : this, I
fear, cannot be said of our happily in all other respects cleaner island." —
" A young man, with some tints of academical training, and some of the
livid lights of a then only incipient Rationalism on his mind." In these
sentences the endeavor to introduce qualifying matter in a non-emphatic
place is praiseworthy, but the place makes it seem like dead weight.

28. The single-word adverb is unemphatic before its verb
and emphatic after it ; according to the stress needed, there-
fore, the adverb can be placed at will. An adverbial phrase,
coming as it does naturally after its verb, is stressed by being
placed at the beginning of the sentence or clause.

Examples. — 1. In the following sentence the adverb, while important,
is not emphatic : " Each man gains a power of realizing and firmly con-
ceiving those things he habitually deals with, and not other things." Here
the stress-word is the verb.

2. Compare now the effect of placing the adverb after the verb : " He
writes passionately, because he feels keenly ; forcibly, because he feels
vividly ; he sees too clearly to be vague ; he is too serious to be otiose,"
etc. Here the adverb is the strong element ; strong enough in one
instance (" forcibly ") to stand alone in its clause.

3. In the following the two positions are taken alternately, with the
stress thereby shifted : " There is a plot to humiliate us in the most abomi-
nable way. The whole family have sworn to make us blush publicly.
Publicly blush ! They have written to Mama to come and speak out.
Now will you attend to me, Caroline ? You do not credit such atrocity ?
I know it to be true."1

1 Meredith, Evan Harrington, Chap. xxx.

246 COMPOSITION.

4. The adverbial phrase emphasized by being placed at the beginning:
" In no modern country has ideality been more retarded than in our own ;
and I think that certain restrictions have peculiarly limited production in
the field of Poetry, — the chief of imaginative arts." Here the inverted
sentence-order directs the stress.

29. A genitival or ^/"-phrase, being the adjunct of a noun,
naturally craves the place just after its noun, and in a series
of phrases takes precedence of phrases adverbial in office.
But in the stress-position, at the end, it is more liable than
other phrases to seem misplaced, more liable also to incur
ambiguity (cf. IT 24) ; it should be tested, therefore, for both
of these faults.

Examples. — In the following sentence we can see the justification of
delaying the genitival phrase ; it is seeking the stress-position : " It is
largely the magnificent gift to the present of dead and unremembered
men."1 — In the following, though there is the same reason, the position
begins to seem awkward and suggestive of ambiguity : " I was frightened
not less by the darkness than by the silence — which every now and then
was made keener by the hooting in some elm or willow by the roadside
of a screech-owl : a dismal bird." 2 — The following is too awkwardly
collocated to justify itself, — it needs a recast: "Again, the preservation
in a race or nation by tradition of historical characters bears the same
relation to literary embodiment that folk-lore or folk-ballads bear to
literature."

IV. RETROSPECTIVE REFERENCE.

This term is here adopted to designate the office of any
word that requires for its interpretation some word or con-
struction preceding. Under the term are included pronouns
personal, demonstrative, and relative, adverbs demonstrative
and relative, and phrases of reference, — in general, whatever
for its meaning necessitates thinking back to an earlier word
called an antecedent.

1 Gordon, The Christ of To-day, p. 266.

2 Gras, The Reds of the Midi, p. 66.

PHRASEOLOGY.

247

In the whole range of composition there is no process
oftener mismanaged than this process of retrospective refer-
ence. The mismanagement results not from ignorance, but
from haste and carelessness ; the writer, in his ardor to con-
tinue his thought, does not stay to look back, but trusts to
chance for accuracy, or puts the burden of interpretation on
his reader. It is of especial importance in this process to
form the habit, in the case of any backward referring word,
of looking back at once and making sure of its adjustments
before proceeding. Such a grammatical habit once thoroughly
established does not check or retard the current of the think-
ing, and will save much trouble of recasting afterwards.1

Resources at Command. — The range and character of retrospec-
tive reference are indicated in the subjoined tabular view.

TABLE OF RETROSPECTIVE REFERENCE.

Demonstratives.

Relatives.

I. Person- and Thing-Reference.

he she it they

this that

these those

the former the latter

who

which

that

II. Place-Reference.

here

there

hence

thence

hither

thither

where

whence

whither

III. Time-Reference.

Liu

when

while

1 In speaking of " the liability of pronominal words to be the seat of obscurity,"
<>r Earle says: " The chief security against this danger lies in the cultivation

248 COMPOSITION.

From this table it will be seen that reference may be made
to a person or thing, to a place, or to a time ; and that any
of these antecedents may be either definitely pointed out
(by a demonstrative), or taken for granted (by a relative).
Further, it will be noticed that when the antecedent is
pointed out it may be recognized as either near or remote,
and hence for each of the demonstratives (with the excep-
tion of the personal pronoun) there are two forms, to indi-
cate these two varieties of relation. When the antecedent is
taken for granted, such discrimination is not so necessary.

Owing to the lack of inflection in English, the means for
discriminating between two or more possible antecedents are
somewhat meagre. The unaided pronoun of the singular
number, he, she, it, has the power of discriminating only
between the sexes, and between persons and things ; while
the plural, they, can discriminate only between one object
and several. As a consequence of this poverty, in the
general problem how to remove vagueness or ambiguity of
reference, questions of order, prominence, proximity, repe-
tition, and the like, assume cardinal importance.

Note. — Before proceeding to the discussion of means, it may be desir-
able to give some examples of vague reference, also some examples of well-
managed reference.

i. The following, from Smollett, will show how careless the matter of
retrospective reference wTas a century ago : " The pedant assured his patron
that although he could not divest the boy of the knowledge he had already
imbibed, unless he would empower him to disable his fingers, he should

of the grammatical habit of mind. Let every pronoun or pronominal word have its
definite antecedent, and that not merely in some vague idea but in a definite gram-
matical word. ... It is not enough that pronouns have their antecedents in the
writer's mind, or in the sense of the previous clause ; they should always be referrible
to grammatical words. There may be no doubt as to the meaning of a sentence,
and yet it may be far from lucid. For by Lucidity we mean something more than
the absence of darkness ; we mean a bright and outshining clearness which comes
forward to meet the reader in a luminous and spontaneous manner. A grammatical
habit of mind is the first rudiment of such a Lucidity as this." — English Prose,
p. 196.

PHRASEOLOGY. 249

endeavor, with God's help, to prevent his future improvement." Here the
reader is left to pick his way as best he can between three possible ante-
cedents, all represented merely by the pronoun he. — "This is one of the
most lifelike and telling portraits of Hawthorne that has ever appeared."
Here the writer seems to mean "one — that has appeared," while his real
meaning must be " portraits — that have appeared." The antecedent is
not accurately discriminated. — "An old friend of Mr. Watts, R. A. (him-
self an artist), whose pictures are now on exhibition in the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, has favored us with the following interesting sketch of
that remarkable painter." Here the antecedent of whose has to be guessed
at. — "A large capitalist or syndicate will sometimes buy all the wheat or
cotton in the market, and hold it until its scarcity and the growing need
for it enables him to charge what he will for it." Here the masculine pro-
noun is made to do the double duty of a masculine and a neuter.

2. Note how clear are the various means of reference in the following :
"Monsieur was splendid to behold. All the precious stones and jewels of
Cardinal Mazarin, which of course that minister could not do otherwise
than leave; all the queen-mother's jewels, as well as a few others belong-
ing to his wife, — Monsieur wore them all, and he was as dazzling as the
sun."1 Here every word of reference clearly selects its proper antecedent.
— " It was perhaps the fiftieth time since the day on which we opened this
history, that this man, with a heart of bronze and muscles of steel, had left
house and friends — everything, in short — to go in search of fortune and
death. The one — that is to say, Death — had constantly retreated before
him, as if afraid of him ; the other — that is to say, Fortune — only for a
month past had really made an alliance with him."2 Here the writer's
sense of clearness cannot be satisfied with merely pointing out his ante-
cedent ; he takes pains also to repeat it, so that his reader shall not fail to
follow him without effort.

Preparing Antecedent for Reference. — As in a game the ball
is not only played but left in position for the next play, so in
the phrasing of the thought a word that is to be referred to
should be so placed or treated that the reader may naturally
think back to it from the referring word. The spontaneous
effort to leave the antecedent in favorable position is one of
the results of the grammatical habit mentioned above.

1 Dumas, Vicomte de Bragelonne, Vol. iii, p. 416.

2 lb., Vol. ii, p. 156.

250 COMPOSITION.

29. The most natural aid is from the law of Proximity.
Other things being equal, the pronoun will be referred to the
nearest word that can function as an antecedent ; the endeavor
should be made, therefore, so to arrange the sentence that the
real antecedent shall occupy that place. This applies with
especial force to the antecedent of the restrictive relative.

Examples. — " Some prisons have a bad reputation with the criminal
fraternity, and I fancy they rather shun the States where these exist." Here
the word they is used as naturally referrible to the nearest antecedent " crimi-
nal fraternity," and the reference is so spontaneous that the later word these
is clear enough, without closer discrimination as belonging to the other. —
In the following sentence proximity is wholly depended upon for reference :
"In this war both Marius and Sulla served ; Sulla increased his reputa-
tion, Marius tarnished his. Some plead for him age and illness." Here
the word him can be referred to the nearest antecedent because the gram-
matical prominence of the two words Marius and Sulla is equal, and only
the law of Proximity is operative.

30. But other things are not always equal. The nearest
word may be insignificant in office, and so may not easily
attract the pronoun ; or it may not be practicable to put the
real antecedent next its pronoun. Aid should be sought in
such cases from the law of Prominence ; that is, the true ante-
cedent should be put in a principal grammatical function,
usually as subject ; it may, however, be the object of a verb or
a preposition, but not in the possessive case, nor may it be
left to implication.

Examples. — " At this moment the colonel came up and took the place
of the wounded general. He gave orders to halt." Here the remoter
noun (the colonel) is so much more prominent, both in sense and construc-
tion, that no real ambiguity exists.

In the sentence quoted under the previous paragraph, if we put one of
the clauses in subordinate construction the law of Prominence may be made
to aid the law of Proximity with a distinct gain to clearness ; thus : " While
Sulla increased his reputation, Marius tarnished his. Some plead for him
age and illness." Here Marius as subject of a principal clause takes the
pronoun by prominence as well as by proximity.

PHRASEOLOGY. 251

The following sentences are blind because the antecedent is left implied.
" The parsonage of Bishop's Borne in Kent, three miles from Canterbury,
is in that archbishop's gift." Here the archbishop of Canterbury has to be
understood from the mere mention of the place. — " No vice or wicked-
ness which people fall into from indulgence of desires which are natural to
all, ought to place them below the compassion of the virtuous part of the
world : which indeed often makes me a little apt to suspect the sincerity
of their virtue, who are too warmly provoked at other people's personal
sins." Here the word which must be referred to a wholly indefinite ante-
cedent. The word who represents a possessive; admissible here, but con-
sider the greater directness of reference in " of the virtue of those who." J

Clearness and Fulness in the Referring Word. — Two objects
may be had in view in the use of a word or phrase of ref-
erence : first and most imperatively, to discriminate clearly
between two or more possible antecedents, a matter requir-
ing sometimes much ingenuity ; and secondly, by the manner
of reference not only to represent but to describe, or other-
wise enrich the meaning of, the antecedent.

31. The following are the principal means of securing ade-
quate clearness in pronominal reference. First, as unaided
referring word, the relative may be trusted to stand alone
only when the antecedent has been sufficiently prepared by
proximity or prominence ; the personal pronoun only for ante-
cedents of different genders and numbers. Secondly, when
the antecedents are of the same gender or number, recourse
is sometimes had, with profit to the vividness as well as the
clearness of the style, to the use of direct discourse, which
changes the pronouns from third person to first and second.
Thirdly, the demonstratives this and that, the former and the latter,
may often be useful, more so in written than in spoken style, in
bringing to mind antecedents in their order, near and remote.
Fourthly, with the demonstrative or relative the real antece-
dent is sometimes chosen out from the mass and repeated.

1 These sentences are quoted from Izaak Walton and Richard Steele, respectively,
rle, in English /'rose, p. 196.

252 COMPOSITION.

Examples. — i. The spontaneity of the pronouns when they represent
different numbers or genders is too common to need enlargement. An
example : " Outsiders will spur him on. They will say, ' Why do you not
write a great book ? paint a great picture ? ' If his guardian angel fail him,
they may even persuade him to the attempt, and, ten to one, his hand is
coarsened and his style falsified for life." l

2. The following will illustrate the difficulty in pronouns of the same
gender, and the remedy of direct discourse : "He told his friend that if he
did not feel better in half an hour he thought he had better return." Here
the ambiguity is quite insurmountable. Say, however, " He said to his
friend, ' If I (or you) do not feel better I think I had better return, " and
all is clear enough. — Take the sentence from Smollett quoted on p. 248
and put it into direct discourse : " The pedant said to his patron, ' Al-
though I cannot divest the boy of the knowledge he has already imbibed,
unless you will empower me to disable his fingers, I will endeavor, with
God's help, to prevent his future improvement.' " Here the three per-
sons, first, second, and third, are used to distribute the pronouns that before
were all in the third person.

3. The following sentences illustrate the serviceableness of demonstra-
tives : " The soldier and the explorer have moments of a worthier excite-
ment, but they [better, these] are purchased by cruel hardships and periods
of tedium that beggar language." 2 Here the word these would enable the
reader to think of the nearer of two possible antecedents. " And don't fancy
that you will lower yourselves by sympathy with the lower creatures; you
cannot sympathize rightly with the higher, unless you do with those : but
you have to sympathize with the higher, too — with queens, and kings,
and martyrs, and angels."3 — "The mind and soul of Transcendentalism
seemed to find their predestined service in the land of the Puritans. The
poetry which sprang from it had a more subtle aroma than that whose
didacticism infected the English Lake school. The latter made prosaic
the verse of famous poets ; out of the former the quickest inspiration of
our down-East thinkers seemed to grow." 4 This last example is none too
clear.

4. The antecedent repeated with the relative or demonstrative : " It had
also a bright-varnished mahogany tea-table, over which was a looking-glass
in a gilt frame, with a row of little architectural balls on it ; which looking-

1 Stevenson, Fontainebleau, Works, Vol. xv, p. 173.

2 Stevenson, Letter to a Young Gentleman, Works, Vol. xv, p. 282.

3 Ruskin, Two Paths, p. 172.

4 Stedman, Poets of America, p. 51.

PHRASE OLOGY. 253

glass was always kept shrouded in white muslin at all seasons of the year,
on account of a tradition that flies might be expected to attack it for
one or two weeks in summer." x — "I am convinced that it is likeness, and
not contrast, which produces this liking — likeness, mark you, in some
essential particular, in some sub-stratum, as I said before, in the mind,
which liking is not overcome by considerable dissimilarity upon the upper
surface." 2

32. The referring word, in addition to representing its
antecedent, may be made the occasion for enriching or more
closely determining its meaning. The following main aspects
of this may be mentioned. First, instead of repeating the
antecedent identically, it may repeat it by a defining or
descriptive word. Secondly, in thus naming its antecedent
it may discriminate between a thing and a fact, and thus its
antecedent may be a whole assertion and yet be perfectly rep-
resented in the reference. Thirdly, the referring word may
on occasion make the reference more vague or general than
by representing a concrete thing, by the use of words like
such, thereby, in this mci7iner, and the like. By such liberty
and flexibility of reference the thought may be kept from
baldness and made to grow at each step.

Examples. — 1. Reference by a defining word is illustrated in the sen-
tence quoted from Dumas on p. 249 : " All the precious stones and jewels
of Cardinal Mazarin, which of course that minister could not do otherwise
than leave." — Professor Bain's proposed correction of the sentence from
Smollett (pp. 248, 252) employs descriptive terms thus: "The pedant
assured his patron that although he could not divest the boy of the
knowledge already imbibed, unless he were empowered to disable the little
trickster 's fingers, he should endeavor, with God's help, to prevent his
pupiVs future improvement."

2. Discrimination between a thing and a fact, between word and clause-
reference : " When an American book is republished in England, it [better
the /act] is heralded as a noteworthy event in literature." — The sentence
from Steele quoted on p. 25 r might be helped, though perhaps not wholly

1 Stowe, Oldtown Folks, p. 63.

2 Helps, Brevia, p. 132.

254 COMPOSITION.

corrected, if with which we should read a defining word : which unkind-
liness indeed, etc. — " God, foreseeing the disorders of human nature,
has given us certain passions and affections which arise from, or whose
objects are, these disorders. Of this sort are fear, resentment, compas-
sion." Here the antecedent is wrongly treated not as a collection but
a class ; better, " among these are," etc.

3. The referring word purposely left large in its reference. " When a
recognized organization places itself in opposition to what the people
regard as their rights, it endangers its own existence; and a continuation
of this attitude [better such attitude] is almost sure to cause its over-
throw." The word such draws attention not to the particular deed but to
the kind of deed. — " It may be well to make brief mention of Lawrence
Sheriff, the founder of this Rugby school, that some of its early history
may through that [better, may thereby\ be portrayed " ; the reference being
not to mention but to the fact of making mention.

V. PROSPECTIVE REFERENCE.

This term designates the office of any word of reference,
pronominal or other, when the word or idea for which it
stands is yet to be expressed.

Anticipative It and There. — The idioms it is and there is (or
there are, there was, there were), beginning a sentence or clause,
are the commonest forms of prospective reference, and are
especially valuable as a means of inverting the grammatical
order of subject and predicate. Introduced first, these words
stand provisionally for the actual subject ; while the latter,
thus free to choose its position, may be placed where it will
have the greatest distinction.

Examples. — 1. "It is a necessity of every manufacturing and com-
mercial people that their customers should be very wealthy and intelligent."
Here the clause "that their customers," etc., which is the real subject of
remark, acquires a distinction proper to its importance by being placed
after its predicate, " is a necessity " ; and this is effected by making it
stand provisionally for the subject.

2. Observe what emphasis is given to the words " a single day " in the
following, by the facility of delay afforded by the use of There at the

PHRASE OLOGY. 255

beginning : " There has not for the whole of that time been a single day
of my life when it would have been safe for me to go south of Mason and
Dixon's line in my own country."

33. As the word it may refer backward as well as forward,
care is needed not to employ it where the reference is uncer-
tain, and not to mix its retrospective and anticipative func-
tions unadvisedly in the same passage.

Examples. — The following examples will show that even where no
real ambiguity exists the double use of it in the same passage always sug-
gests the possibility of being led astray : " It would be absurd to make
another attempt; it would be a mere throwing away of money." Here
the second /'/, retrospective, sounds at best awkward after its anticipative
use. So too in the following sentence from Ruskin : " It is pretty and
appropriate ; and, if it boasted of any other perfection, it would be at the
expense of its propriety."

The following, copied from a newspaper, is an extreme instance of care-
lessness in the mixture of functions. It is a description of a temperance
speech made by a rope-walker while hanging in the air : " It was a speech
not easily forgotten, delivered as it was from a peculiar platform, and on a
subject not often touched under the circumstances. It made me think of
some other things, on the line of the same thought. The mind, the soul,
has a grip. It may hold on. Sometimes it is imperative. It is death not
to do so. It is responsible in the matter. It is chargeable with its own
destruction if it does not hold on." x

Demonstratives and Numerals. — As in blazing a path
through an unexplored tract for the benefit of those who are
to come after, so means of prospective reference are often
used, as pointers, to prepare the reader for something espe-
cially noteworthy or helpful in the passage on which he is
entering.

1 " The word it is the greatest trembler that I know of in language. It is so small,
and so convenient, that few are careful enough in using it. Writers seldom spare
this word. Whenever they are at a loss for either a nominative or an objective to
their sentence, they, without any kind of ceremony, clap in an it. . . . Never put an
it upon paper without thinking well of what you are about. When I see many its in
I always tremble for thewriter." ■ Cobbei r, English Grammar, $$ [94, 196.

256 COMPOSITION.

34. The strong demonstratives, such as this and these, when
used prospectively, serve to fasten attention on some descrip-
tive or important element of what is to be told, before the
thing itself is named. The personal pronouns, thus employed,
sound more artificial, and when used should not keep their
subject waiting long.

Examples. — " This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation,
that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." Here the saying
itself, which is delayed by the prospective this, is not only emphasized by
position, but defined beforehand as to its importance, by the intermediate
phrase.

The somewhat strange sound of a prospective personal pronoun is
illustrated by the following : " But such a use of language, although
necessary to a good style, has no more direct relation to it than her daily
dinner has to the blush of a blooming beauty.''''

35. Numerals and other particles of reference are especially
useful in spoken discourse for mapping out the plan of what
is coming, and thus enabling the hearer to grasp its bounds
and stages. The copiousness of such words of reference is
naturally greater as the thought taxes the mind more. The
common tendency, to give the hearer too little help of this
kind, should be noted and corrected.

Examples of Explicit Reference. — The following will illustrate
Burke's carefulness in articulating the thought of his speeches before
amplifying it: " The capital leading questions on which you must this day
decide are these two : First, whether you ought to concede ; and, secondly,
what your concession ought to be. On the first of these questions we have
gained some ground." x — The following paragraph from Ruskin is nearly
all a prospective laying out of plan ; though he is somewhat less formal
and does not employ numerals : " We have contemplated the rural dwell-
ing of the peasant ; let us next consider the ruralized domicile of the gen-
tleman : and here, as before, we shall first determine what is theoretically
beautiful, and then observe how far our expectations are fulfilled in indi-
vidual buildings. But a few preliminary observations are necessary."2
Consider how these prospective words keep the plan before the reader

1 Burke, Conciliation with America. 2 Ruskin, Poetry of Architecture.

PHRASEOLOGY. 257

VI. CORRELATION.

Many words or forms of expression occur in pairs, the one
member of the pair suggesting and requiring the other.
Some cautions and characteristics of this mutual relation
need here to be noted.

Cautions in Comparison. — In comparing by means of such
words as than and as, there is a tendency to ambiguity or
inexactness between the things or acts compared.

36. Verbs or prepositions should be repeated after than or
as, when necessary to make the grammatical relation of the
later member clear.

Examples. — "Cardinal Richelieu hated Buckingham as sincerely as
the Spaniard Olivares." This sentence leaves it uncertain whether the last
name is a subject or an object ; we may read it either, " as did the Span-
iard Olivares," or, " as he hated the Spaniard Olivares." Supply the verb
according to the sense intended.

"Pleasure and excitement had more attraction for him than his friend."
Here, according to the intended meaning, a verb or a preposition should
be supplied : "than for his friend," or, "than had his friend."

37. In comparing complex objects, care is needed that the
points are really comparable with each other. Sometimes,
through heedlessness, the comparison is given as between
ideas that really have no correlation.

Examples. — "No author could more faithfully represent a character
than this portrayal of Count Cenci by Shelley; and though the subject is
unworthy, we cannot but admire the power with which it is treated."
Here the comparison is apparently made between representing and por-
trayal, an act and a thing. If we should say " than Shelley has portrayed
the character of Count Cenci," the comparison would be between like
objects, to which "faithfully" equally applies.

The following question was actually propounded once in a college prize
debate; the decision reached, however, is not recorded: " Resolved, thai
a college graduate is better fitted for American citizenship than any
Other."

258 COMPOSITION.

Particles of Correlation. — Such particles as either . . . or,
neither . . . nor, on the one hand . . . -on the other hand, not
only . . . but also, serve to prepare for coming alternatives of
thought, enabling the reader thus to anticipate the whole
circuit and prepare for its relations at the outset.

Note. — Consider how necessary it is, for example, in the following
sentence, to prepare the reader from the first for an alternative: "You
must take this extremely perilous course, in which success is uncertain, and
failure disgraceful, as well as ruinous, or else the liberty of your country is
endangered." The correlatives, " Either you must take . . . or else" etc.,
save much liability to misinterpretation and obviate the necessity of cor-
recting an impression formed and held for half a sentence. — It may
sometimes be desirable to neglect the correlation on purpose to give the
sentence a sudden epigrammatic turn ; see below, under Epigram, p." 273.

38. The words not only and but, or but also, when correla-
tive, should be followed by the same part of speech.

Examples. — "He not only gave me advice but also help" is wrong.
Write, " He gave me not only advice but also help." What part of
speech follows these particles is immaterial ; simply make them the same,
— nouns, verbs, or prepositional phrases, — and they will articulate their
respective thoughts clearly. " He spoke not only forcibly but also taste-
fully [adverbs], and this too, not only before a small audience but also in
a large public meeting [prepositions], and his speeches were not only suc-
cessful, but also worthy of success [adjectives]."

Sometimes the also may be separated from the but by considerations of
grace or strength, for example : " But by seeking the other things first, as
we naturally do, we miss not only the Kingdom of God, but those other
things also which are truly attained only by aiming beyond them." *

39. The particles indeed, in fact, in truth, to be swe, and the
like, are much used, by way of concession, to prepare for a
coming adversative, but, still, or yet. They may thus control
the relation of a clause, a sentence, or even a whole para-
graph, before the adversative correlate is reached.

1 Rule and examples taken mostly from Abbott's Hczv to Write Clearly.

PHRASEOLOGY. 259

Examples. — The following examples are all taken from Macaulay,
who used this construction almost to the extent of mannerism.1 " No
writer, indeed, has delineated character more skilfully than Tacitus ; but
this is not his peculiar glory." — "// is true that his veneration for antiquity
produced on him some of the effects which it produced on those who arrived
at it by a very different road. [Here intervenes a sentence of amplification.]
Yet even here we perceive a difference." — " The fashionable logic of the
Greeks was, indeed, far from strict." [This sentence introduces a paragraph,
and the indeed controls the thought of it all. The next paragraph then
begins : ] " Still, where thousands of keen and ready intellects were con-
stantly employed in speculating on the qualities of actions and on the
principles of government, it was impossible that history should retain its
old character."

Often this correlation is effected in the first member, with-
out the aid of a particle, by introducing a thought so obvi-
ously concessive that the but is naturally suggested.

Examples. — " He has written something better, perhaps, than the
best history ; but he has not written a good history ; he is, from the first
to the last chapter, an inventor." — " Of the concise and elegant accounts
of the campaigns of Caesar little can be said. They are incomparable
models for military dispatches ; but histories they are not, and do not
pretend to be."

VII. CONJUNCTIONAL RELATION.

More perhaps than on any other one thing, the progress,
the flexibility, and the delicacy of a writer's expression, are
dependent on the fine and accurate use of conjunctions.
They mark every change of direction and relation. Their
office is to take ideas that otherwise would be loosely strung
together, and make them interlinked and continuous, "true
composition and not mere loose accretion."2 The mastery

1 Examples all from Macaulay's essay on History.

- I'a i ik, Appreciations, p. 20. — " A close reasoner and a good writer in general
known by his pertinent use of connectives. Read that page of Johnson ;

•'"ii '• ot :tlter one conjunction without spoiling the sense. It is in a linked strain

throughout. In your modern books, for the most part, the sentences In a page have
with ea< h othei that marbles have m a bag ; they touch without

260 COMPOSITION.

of conjunctions, therefore, is more than mere proficiency in
verbal distinctions ; just as accurate reference called for an
ingrained grammatical habit, so here is needed what may
be called the logical habit, the habit of noting the relations
of ideas, and of estimating closely the kind, the degree, the
shadings of such relations.

Out of the two great classes into which conjunctions fall,
the coordinating and the subordinating, rise two leading
types of sentence structure, the composita and the evoluta,.of
which more will be said in the chapter on The Sentence.1

The Coordinating Class. — By the coordinating sense is meant
that the conjunctions of this class introduce a thought hav-
ing the same rank, the same grammatical importance, as the
thought preceding ; the whole utterance, therefore, with its
conjunctive link, being a composite utterance, one part added
to or growing out of the other.

Additive and Cumulative. — It is the function of these con-
junctions to add a new assertion having the same bearing,
and moving in the same direction, as what preceded.

Type Conjunction and List. — The great representative of these
conjunctions is and. Others are : also, yea, likewise, in like manner,
again, besides, too, further, moreover, furthermore, add to this. Most of
these head their clauses ; the word too, however, is put after another word
in close sequence, and the words also and likewise may be placed after the
first pause.

adhering." — Coleridge, Table Talk, May 15, 1833. — " This is a feature in which
our Prose stands in contrast with French prose. French writers are much more
explicit in Conjunctions than we are ; and perhaps this is one of the traits which
produce the wonderful luminousness of French diction. Perhaps it would be as well
for English writers to cultivate our Conjunctions with a little more attention, keep-
ing an eye not only upon the French page, but also on that of Hooker and other
Elizabethan authors." — Earle, English Prose, p. 196.
1 See below, pp. 317, 318.

PHRASEOLOG Y. 261

40. The shadings of relation in these conjunctions come
from their adverbial sense ; for it is to be noted that con-
junctions are mostly derived from adverbs, and may present
all stages of use, from almost purely adverbial to almost
purely connective. The degree of relation may be softened,
that is, rendered^ less obtrusive, by using a conjunction that
may be removed from the beginning and buried in its clause.

Note. — In the sentence, " He taught me also, and said unto me, Let
thine heart retain my words," the assertion is slipped in, as it were, before
its relation to the previous is revealed ; this throws the stress upon the
assertion rather than upon the connection, leaving the latter to perform
its function unmarked.

41. A thought moving in the same direction needs often
to be intensified in succeeding members, in order that better
progress and climax may be secured. Connectives that also
intensify are sometimes called cumulative, from the Latin
cumulo, "to heap up."

Note. — We see this cumulative force in such connectives as : more
than this, especially, in greater degree, all the more, much more, after all.

Nay is an old-fashioned cumulative, quite serviceable on occasion but
suggestive of archaism; as, " To the end of his days he enjoyed his bottle
after dinner, nay, could scarce get along without it ; and mixed a punch or
a posset as well as any in our colony." l

The following sentence, from its lack of cumulation, is tame : " But
anything is better than pedantry displaying itself in verse, and in connec-
tion with the name of Homer." We expect "and especially," or some
word which will make the second member worth saying.

Adversative. — These introduce a new statement contrary
in some respect to the preceding, — either as limiting, or as
arresting a seeming inference from it.

Type Conjunction and List. — The representative of adversative
particles is but. Others are : still, yet, however, only, nevertheless, not-
withstanding, at the same time, for all that, after all.

1 Churchill, Richard Carvel,

p. 4.

262 COMPOSITION.

Of these the word however does not stand at the head of its member
but after the first pause; and only can be used conjunctively only as i
stands at the head of its clause and is set off by a comma.

The word though, which is generally a subordinating conjunction, ma}
be used as an adversative when its clause succeeds another, and when i
large pause is made between.

42. When the word but is used to arrest an implied infer
ence from the preceding and turn the thought in opposite
direction, be sure that such inference is natural, and that the
added idea is antithetic ; in other words, that the adversative
relation is real.

Examples. — In the sentence "He is poor, but proud," the antithesis
of proud to poor is real, because it is natural to infer that a poor man
would be humble. Compare, however, the following : " Luther's charactei
was emotional and dogmatic, but exceedingly courageous." Here cour-
ageous does not arrest any natural inference from the preceding; on the
contrary it seems to supply a thought in the same direction, and the but
has no real adversative function. And would be more accurate. Or if we
were to take as the inference that Luther, being emotional and dogmatic,
was nothing else, we could say, " Luther's character was emotional and
dogmatic, but also exceedingly courageous."

43. The adversative relation is susceptible of various
degrees and shadings. The strongest adversative, but, when
used exclusively, as it often is by unskilled writers, gives a
certain hardness and glare to the style. It is better suited
to spoken diction ; while the softer adversative however, though
more bookish and studied, makes the relation less obtrusive,
and sets the opposed ideas less definitely over against each
other.

Examples. — The effect of the exclusive use of but adversative can be
shown only by an extended passage ; here an example may be adduced
showing how it may be desirable to soften the relation. " This society
was founded in 18 17, since which time it has done a truly noble work in
aiding needy applicants for help. But at present the churches seem little
disposed to support it." Here the word but is rather abrupt, and seems to

PHRASEOLOGY. 263

recognize a sharper antithesis than we can evolve from its connected ideas ;
better would be, " At present, ho7vever, the churches seem little disposed to
support it." — Care should be taken that the adversative implied by the
softened hozvever be not too attenuated. Professor Earle quotes the follow-
ing : " Cureton imagined that he could gain evidence for the Hebrew original
of St. Matthew from the Syriac version which he published, and which he
contended had not been made from Greek, but from the original Aramaic.
However, on that point he has failed to convince scholars." Of this he
remarks : " The connective however implies some antecedent discussion
of the point which does not appear on the page, and this is a defect in
writing."1

44. An adversative within an adversative may be used in
two ways. Used as a further turning of the thought, it ordi-
narily requires to be indicated by a different adversative par-
ticle from. the main one, else it makes the thought restless
and gyrating. There is, however, a highly rhetorical use of
the repeated adversative particle, the thought being not suc-
cessively turned but continued in the same direction, thus
securing the emphasis of iterated relation.

Examples. — 1. In the following example the effect of the repeated
but is simply crude ; as if the thought were turned round and then wheeled
back again. " He knew that Tyndal was an expert detective and sel-
dom blundered. But he was not quite ready to admit the dangerous doc-
trine that all men are to be suspected until proved innocent. But he
was too wise a clerk to risk informing Captain Adam of what had occurred,
lest his own arrest as a confederate should follow." 2 Here if we should
say, " He was too wise a clerk, however, to risk," etc., the second adversa-
tive is disguised. — The following, from De Quincey, manages the repetition
of the adversative with easy grace : " But it is no more than a skirmish
which is going on ; in the course of which, however, an occasion suddenly
arises for a desperate service." 3

2. The following illustrates the rhetorical iteration of the adversative :
"Not a hut he builds but is the visible embodiment of a thought; but
bears visible record of invisible things; but is, in the transcendental sense,

1 Earle, English Prose, p. 197.

2 E. P. Roe, The Gray and the Blue, p. </>.

8 De Quincey, Autobiographic Sketches, p. 151.

264 COMPOSITION.

symbolical as well as real."1 — Likewise this from De Q'uincey : "All is
finite in the present ; and even that finite is infinite in its velocity of flight
towards death. But in God there is nothing finite ; but in God there is
nothing transitory ; but in God there can be nothing that tends to
death."2

Illative and Causal. — Illative conjunctions (name derived
from the Latin Malum, in-ferre) indicate inference, effect, or
consequence. Causal conjunctions introduce a reason or
explanation. Both are coordinating, in the sense of pushing
the thought to some appended thought of the same gram-
matical importance.

Type Conjunctions and List. — The representative of illative con-
junctional relation is therefore. Others are : wherefore, hence, whence,
consequently, accordingly, thus, so, then, so then. Now is an old-fashioned
connective used to introduce a consequence not closely connected with the
preceding.

The representative of causal conjunctional relation is for. Others
are : because, and phrasal connectives such as : arising from, owing to,
due to, and the like. Most of these may be used either coordinately or
subordinately.

45. The kind of inference, as indicated by the adverbial
force of the conjunction, is a matter requiring accurate
thought, and too often left loose. The word thus is fre-
quently misused, from the variety and vagueness of relation
it is made to bear.

Example. — " Two emotions were paramount in his mind : hope that he
might perform the task more efficiently than had any of his rivals, and fear
lest in any part of it he should fall below his ideal. Thus, being so power-
fully impelled, he soon distanced all competitors." Here thus, which
properly means in this manner, does not express the exact nature of the
sequence, and is all the more confusing for being very near the meaning.
The word accordingly would be more accurate.

1 Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, Book iii, Chap. iii.

2 De Quincey, Suspiria de Profundis, p. 255.

PHRASEOLOGY. 265

46. The causal relation, being the one perhaps most
readily suggested, can best be trusted to go unmarked by
a particle. The constant employment of for, for instance,
is a mark of crude writing.

Example. — " You must have handed me that money when I was not
thinking of it. For I found it when I made up my account at night."
The wordy^r is superfluous.

II.

The Subordinating Class. — The conjunctions of this class
introduce a thought having an ancillary or secondary gram-
matical relation to a principal assertion; the whole utterance,
therefore, consisting of a main assertion with such condition-
ing and modifying parts as serve to give its true scope and
limits.

Conditional and Defining. — These serve to give conditions,
limitations, accompaniments of time, place, and manner, and
the like.

Type Conjunction and List. — The representative of conditional con-
junctions is if. The condition may have either a positive implication, as:
provided, as, whereas, inasmuch as ; or adversative, as : though, although,
while, unless, save, except. The particles when, while, where, expressing
time and place limitations, are in government just like a conditional particle.
For brevity and simplicity we speak of ^/"-clauses and ze^w-clauses as indi-
cating the conditional relation.

•447. The art of subordination — what to make subordinate
and what principal — is something requiring much study of
the relative importance of ideas. To put every idea in prin-
cipal assertion is not composition but mere accretion ; but in
subordinating one idea to another, study to subordinate the
right thing.

Illustrations. — Imperfect subordination of ideas is shown in the
following : " Henry V. was one of those few young men who give up their
youth to carousal and folly, with the resolve that when they are older they

266 COMPOSITION.

will settle down to a steadier life, and who succeed in carrying out their
better purpose." Here the two statements cannot equally be made of few
young men ; it is only the second that can rightly be predicated of them,
the first being preparatory to this. The first clause ought therefore to be
subordinated in structure to the second ; thus : " Henry V. was one of
those few young men who, having given up their youth . . . with the resolve
that . . . , actually succeed in carrying out their better purpose."

The following sentence appears in the Authorized Version of the New
Testament : " But God be thanked that ye were the servants of sin, but ye
have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered
you.* Here it is evident that the thanks are due not for what is said in
the first clause but only for the fact mentioned in the second. The makers
of the Revised Version, recognizing this, subordinate thus : " But thanks
be to God, that, whereas ye were servants of sin, ye became obedient from
the heart to that form of teaching whereunto ye were delivered." A
poorer verse on the whole, but better subordinated.

48. Subordination by means of a conjunction may be aug-
mented, that is, the subordinate clause made less emphatic
and obtrusive, by condensed and rapid structure where occa-
sion permits, and by putting the subordinate clause in an
inconspicuous position. The opposite means are relied on
when the condition is the important part of the sentence.

Examples. — Note the difference in emphasis between the conditional
clauses in the following examples. " Even so faith, if it hath not works, is
dead, being alone." Here the //"-clause attracts comparatively little atten
tion, being buried in the sentence. Compare the following: —

" But now farewell. I am going a long way
With these thou seest — if indeed I go
(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt) —
To the island-valley of Avilion."

Here the //-clause has an emphatic place, being after the principal as
tion ; and the condition is made distinctive by the word indeed, and the
parenthesis following.

49. Subordination inside a clause already subordinate
should be made by the use of a different conjunction ;
else there is danger that the second clause may be read as
coordinate with the other instead of subordinate to it.

ten-

PHRASEOLOGY. 267

Examples. — " If the man will make full restitution of the stolen
goods, if he is honest in his expressed purpose to lead a better life, he
may be pardoned." Here the second subordination would be better
effected by another conjunction : "provided indeed he is honest," etc.
The particle provided would be, perhaps, too prosaic for poetry ; but notice
the following: —

" But thou — //thou wilt seek earnestly unto God,
And to the Almighty make supplication, —
So be that thou art pure and upright, —
Verily then He will awake for thee,
And will restore the habitation of thy righteousness." 1

Here the second subordination, which evidently must be made tributary to
the first, is made consistently with the poetic nature of the passage.

Sequential. — By this term we may designate those subordi-
nating conjunctions which, instead of indicating an antece-
dent condition or accompaniment, carry on the assertion to a
result or object.

Type Conjunction and List. — The representative of this kind of
conjunctional relation is that. Others are : in order that, so that, as well
as, as much as, whereby.

50. Conjunctions of this class are valuable for prolonging
an assertion beyond its natural close until something essen-
tial to its full significance is added. A danger to be guarded
against, however, is the involved construction which these
conjunctions are liable to occasion.

Note. — These conjunctions are derived from the relative and are
much like the relative construction in the facility with which they add
new elements. An example of their usefulness : " He is so anxious to
carry his point that he cares not what point he carries." — An example to
show the danger of involved construction : " Eusebius tells that Dionysius
of Corinth relates that Dionysius the Areopagite, who was converted to the
faith by Paul the Apostle, according to the account given in the Acts, was
the first bishop of Athens." 2 Here it is evident that the style may easily
become strung-out and loose.

1 Revised translation of Job viii. 6, by the author of this book.

2 Earle, English Prose, p. 84.

CHAPTER IX.

ORGANIC PROCESSES.

Every composition, from the phrase onward, with all its
component parts and stages, is an organism, wherein every
part derives vitality from every other, and all are subservient
to one unity of impression. The processes that are employed
in evolving an organism of this kind have, therefore, applica-
tions beyond the limits of the phrase ; they may on occasion
extend to the ordering of a whole section or even discourse ;
they belong, in fact, to all organization of thought. Here,
however, it is proposed to examine the most directly practical
of them merely in their principle and first application, which,
being understood, will naturally enough suggest their functions
in a broader field.

I, NEGATION.

To create greater distinction for an idea, or to set one idea
over against another, much recourse is had to the negative
in some form or degree.

Degrees of Negation. — The typical means of expressing the
negative, with no special connotation of stress or lightness, h
the adverb not. For some purposes it may be desirable t<
intensify this negation, for others to soften it.

i. For intensifying the negative the most absolute meai
is the adjective no, taking the place of the adverb and negat
ing the whole subject instead of the act^The adverb itseli
too, is often strengthened either by a supporting adverb 01

ORGANIC PROCESSES. 269

by an equivalent containing no, as in the expressions not at
all, in 110 wise, by no means.

Examples. — One can easily feel the difference in intensity between
these two forms of negation : " Since the fall, mere men are not able in this
life perfectly to keep the commandments of God " ; with which compare :
"No mere man, since the fall, is able," etc. This second sentence throws
the negation into a stronger part of the assertion.

Carlyle, whose tendency to negation was something of a mannerism,
shall furnish examples of intensified negative.

" Shall we say, then, Dante's effect on the world was small in compari-
son ? Not so : his arena is far more restricted ; but also it is far nobler,
clearer ; — perhaps notless but more important." — " This Mahomet, then, we
will in no wise consider as an Inanity and Theatricality, a poor conscious
ambitious schemer ; we cannot consider him so." — " He is by no means the
truest of Prophets ; but I do esteem him a true one." — " No most gifted
eye can exhaust the significance of any object." This example makes its
negative still more rhetorical by assuming that there can be more than one
superlative. — " No Dilettantism in this Mahomet ; it is a business of
Reprobation and Salvation with him ; of Time and Eternity ; he is in
deadly earnest about it ! " Here the absolute no is so strong that it can
dispense with the verb and make its assertion alone.1

2. For softening the negative, various means are available.
In negating a quality the negative prefix nn- or in- (sometimes
7ion-) is milder than the adverb not. In negating an act, the
word nor, uncorrelative, at the beginning of the clause, softens
the negation ; it sounds literary, however, not conversational.
The negative adverb may also be made unobtrusive by being
buried in its clause.

Examples. — i. Of the prefix negative. The increased use of forms
in un-, already noticed (see above, p. 6y, example 4), has greatly enlarged
the vocabulary of the negative ; e.g. " As in flame and lightning, it stands
written there ; awful, wwspeakable, ever present to him." — The following
sentences give all degrees, strong and mild : " The one must in nowise be
done, the other in nowise left undone. You shall not measure them ; they
are /Vzcom mensurable ; the one is death eternal to a man, the other is life
eternal." »

1 Examples taken from Carlyle's Hero Worship.

270 COMPOSITION.

2. Of the uncorrelative nor. " But those were simple, fortunate times
for the young minstrel, who took his success modestly and gladly, nor for-
got his work withal ; and he now enjoyed a season as poetic as ever
afterward came to him." *

" Yet in my secret mind one way I know,
Nor do I judge if it shall win or fail ;
But much must still be tried, which shall but fail." 2

3. Of the unobtrusively placed negative. " In fiction, no more than
elsewhere, may a writer pretend to be what he is not, or to know what he
knows not." Note how much milder this is than to say, "No more in
fiction than elsewhere," etc.

Double Negative. — In English the use of two negatives to
strengthen the negation, though native to the language, has
through Latin influence been abandoned, and now survives
only as a vulgarism.3 For modified affirmation, however, the
double negative, one of the negations being expressed by a
prefix, is extensively employed.

3. The value of the double negative as an affirmative lies
in the fact that it expresses a milder and more guarded degree
of meaning than does direct affirmation ; it is employed, ac-
cordingly, in the interests of precision.

Examples. — " It is not zVwprobable that from this acknowledged power
of public censure grew in time the practice of auricular confession." Here
the writer, unwilling to commit himself to the unqualified assertion that
the thing is probable, chooses rather to negative the opposite. — In the
following, too, the hedging of the assertion by double negative states the
fact with obviously greater precision : " After a while, the little lad grew
accustomed to the loneliness of the place ; and in after days remembered
this part of his life as a period not ««happy." 4

This construction, as it reveals effort, may easily be overworked ; note
for example the following : " Yet it is not wwremarkable that an experi-

1 Stedman, Poets of America, p. 403.

2 Matthew Arnold, Balder Dead.

8 Lounsbury, History of the English Language, p. 135.
4 Thackeray, Henry Esmond, Chap. iv.

ORGANIC PROCESSES. in

enced and erudite Frenchman, not unalive to artistic effect, has just now
selected this very species of character for the main figure in a large portion
of an elaborate work."1

4. The figure litotes, already mentioned as a means of
suggestion or innuendo,2 is virtually a double negative ; that
is, instead of asserting the affirmative that one would expect,
it negates the opposite. Its effect, which it owes to innuendo,
is rather strength than precision.

Examples. — In the following the litotes, by its innuendo, is made to
enhance the humor of the situation : —

"The sight of the curricle acting satellite to the donkey-cart quite
staggered the two footmen.

" ' Are you lords ? ' sang out Old Tom.

" A burst of laughter from the friends of Mr. John Raikes, in the curri-
cle, helped to make the powdered gentlemen aware of a sarcasm, and one
with, no little dignity replied that they were not lords.

"' Are ye judges ? '

" ' We are not.'

" ' Oh ! Then come and hold my donkey.' " 3

In the following the litotes derives further point by its antithesis to the
affirmative : " Where Peter got the time it is difficult to understand, con-
sidering that his law practice was said to be large, and his political occupa-
tions just at present not small?' '4

In both double negative and litotes the two qualities are appreciably
present ; with the guarded affirmation predominant, however, in the former,
and the force due to innuendo predominant in the latter.

II. ANTITHESIS.

The principle of contrast, by which opposite terms or ideas
are so placed or employed as to set off each other, is one of
the most spontaneous in literature. Shown on its narrowest
scale as a pointed balance of word and structure, it may from

1 Bagehot, Literary Studies, Vol. i, p. 16.

2 See above, p. 108.

3 Meredith, Evan Harrington, Chap, xxviii.
* Ford, Peter Stirling, p. 392.

272 COMPOSITION.

this extend to whole masses of thought, to contrasted scenes,
situations, characters, events ; entering therefore as deeply
into invention as into style. These various applications of
the principle will come up for further mention in their place.

Phases of Verbal and Phrasal Antithesis. — It is impossible to
construct a conventional mould for antithesis, because as a
figure of speech it is more truly a thought-figure than a figure
of word or construction. The various phases in which it
appears rise largely from the varying proportions in which
the more inner contrast of thought or emotion works to
support or supplant the outward expression.

5. Antithesis shows itself most simply and typically in a
balanced opposition of phrase, or in some contrasted pair of
words standing as the core of the figure. As the antithesis
of the thought itself is more fundamental, the manner of
expression may be more disguised, and thus the figure may
derive grace from being unobtrusive and hidden.

Examples. — 1. Balanced phrases, with a core-word antithetic. "If
you would seek to make one rich, study not to increase his stores, but t<*
diminish his desires." — " The Puritans hated bear-baiting, not because it
gave />ain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators."1

2. In the following the author, recognizing the suggestiveness of th*
balanced terms, enhances the effect of the antithesis by breaking it off :
" It is because Shakespere dares, and dares very frequently, simply desipere,
simply to be foolish, that he is so pre-eminently wise. The others try to be
always wise, and, alas ! it is not necessary to complete the antithesis." 2

3. Hidden or unobtrusive antithesis. " They were engaged in the
noble work of calling men out of their heathenism, with its manifold cor-
ruptions and superstitions, into the gospel of purity and love." — "A strange
and contradictory spectacle ! An army of criminals doing deeds which could
only be expiated at the stake ; an entrenched rebellion, bearding government
with pike, matchlock, javelin and barricade, and all for no more deadly pur-
pose than to listen to the precepts of the pacific Jesus."3 In these latter
examples it is the idea, not the expression, that points the antithesis.

1 Macaulay, History of England, Chap. ii.

2 Saintsbury, Elizabethan Literature, p. 168.

3 Motley, Rise of the Dutch Republic, Vol. i, p. 535.

ORGANIC PROCESSES. 273

6. Paradox is a form of antithesis wherein the contrast is
not between terms or ideas, though these may be employed
to support it, but between the statement made and one's sense
of congruity, reason, or fact. It is a kind of shock to one's
credulity, which it requires thought to allay.1

Examples. — In the following the author turns a generally accepted
idea topsy-turvy : " It may sound like a nonsensical paradox, and yet we
may seriously maintain that laziness is the motive power of all human
progress." 2 This assertion he goes on to define and prove. — The follow-
ing defines in bold, antithetic terms the paradox that was involved in
Lancelot's guilty love for Queen Guinevere. From his sick-bed the Knight
is regarding Elaine, as she ministers to him : —

" And peradventure had he seen her first
She might have made this and that other world
Another world for the sick man ; but now
The shackles of an old love straiten'd him,
His honor rooted in dishonor stood,
And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true." 3

7. In Epigram the antithesis is still more subtly concealed
in the idea, sometimes indeed quite elusive, though still the
determining principle of the figure.

The term Epigram has been so indiscriminately used that
it has come to be popularly taken as meaning any unusually
pungent way of putting things. This idea takes account of
the most striking quality of epigram, namely, its pithy brevity ;
it is, however, too vague. To be truly epigrammatic, a saying
must give some unexpected turn to the idea ; it is in some

1 Compare De QuinCey, Autobiographic Sketches, p. 229.

'2 Stanley, Essays on Literary Art, p. 127. — There is some color for the
assertion, made half in whimsey, " Take any accepted proposition, invert it, and you
get a New Truth." This is said in the interests of novelty. " Everything rusts by
use. Our moral ideals grow mouldy if preached too much ; our stories stale if told
too often. Conventionality is but a living death. The other side of everything must
be shown, the reverse of the medal, the silver side of the shield as well as the
golden." — Zanowill, Without Prejudice, pp. 141, 143. Of course this paradox-
ical, posturing style runs the risk of being too smart.

8 Tennyson, Lancelot and Elaine, 11. 867-872.

274 COMPOSITION.

form the antithesis between what the reader looks for and what
he gets. Its essential feature, thus, is the element of surprise.

Examples. — The following illustrate some of the means by which
epigrammatic point is secured.

i. The sentence may contain an apparent paradox or contradiction.
This is perhaps the commonest form of epigram. " The statues of Brutus
and Cassius were conspicuous by their absence." — " Verbosity is cured by
a wide vocabulary." — " Language is the art of concealing thought." — " So
good that he is good for nothing." — " The child of rich but honest
parents."

2. The sentence may be a truism the mere assertion of which serves to
emphasize its truth. " Fact is fact." — " His coming was an event." —
" What I have written, I have written."

3. The sentence may associate ideas that have so many intermediate
and unexpressed links as to seem irrelevant. " Where snow falls, there is
a freedom." — " Lapland is too cold a country for sonnets."

4. The sentence may suddenly turn the thought in a different spirit,
thus giving it an unexpected implication. " He is full of information —
like yesterday's Times." — " His memory (for trifles) is remarkable, and
(where his own performances are not involved) his taste is excellent." —
" What that man does not know is not worth knowing," was once said
admiringly of a book-worm. " True," was the reply, " and what he does
know is not worth knowing."

5. The sentence may by a mere play on words bring out some pointed
and lively truth. "The time will come when America, too, will understand
that her ease is her disease." — " My habit of writing only to people who,
rather than have nothing from me, will tolerate nothings." — " Those
laborious orators who mistake perspiration for inspiration."

Errors of Antithesis. — According to the principle that the
bolder a manner of expression the more it is apt to be abused,
antithesis, with its pointed balancing of phrase and idea, has
large potencies of error, which we may trace both from the
side of the expression and from the side of the thought.

8. On the side of the expression, an antithesis may be
faulty by being too unreal ; a promising opposition of terms,
like a play on words, without enough contrast in the idea to
support it. Its effect is artificial.

ORGANIC PROCESSES. US

Examples. — The following by its opposition of terms seems to promise
an antithesis, but the antithesis, at least in the sense suggested, does not
exist. " The argument is, that because pleasure is a becoming — that is, a
state not of being, but of going to be — it is unbecoming. He [Plato]
starts with the Cyrenaic definition that the gods are unchangeable, there-
fore not capable of pleasure. Pleasure which is a becoming is unbecoming
to their nature; and man seeking pleasure seeks that which is unseemly
and ungodlike." 1 — In the sentence, "This is a duty that we are too often
tempted to overlook or 7inder\'a.\ue," the antithesis is so light as to sound
somewhat artificial, more a word-play than a contrast. — The same, though
the antithesis is more real, comes near being the case with the following: —

" But she
Did more, and underwent, and overcame." 2

Here under and over, went and came, promise more antithesis than really
exists in the idea, though some contrast there is.

9. On the side of the thought, the abuse of antithesis con-
sists in overstraining fact on one side or the other, in order
to fit the statement to some striking opposition of terms.
When fact yields in the smallest degree to antithesis, the
figure becomes a snare.

Note. — The antithesis quoted above from Macaulay (p. 272) doubtless
makes a too absolute and sweeping statement about the Puritans, when it
accuses them of hating to see pleasure in spectators ; but the opportunity
for antithesis, so clear and tempting, seems to have caused the historian,
perhaps unthinkingly, to stretch the truth. It is largely Macaulay's invet-
erate tendency to striking antithetic statement that causes distrust in read-
ing his historical writings ; diligent investigator though he was, readers
often hesitate to take his interpretations of facts, for fear he may have
sacrificed some measure of truth to form.

The same over-violence of statement is seen in the following : " All pub-
lic praise is private friendship ; all public detraction is private hate " ; as
also in Pope's well-known line on Bacon : —

" The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind." 3

1 Dallas, The Gay Science, Vol. i, p. 99. 2 Tennyson, Godiva.

8 These last two examples are quoted from Nichol, English Composition, p. 88.
Pascal (Thoughts, p. 237) describes this error of antithesis finely: "Those who
make antitheses by forcing the sense are like those who make false windows for the
sake of symmetry. Their rule is not to speak accurately, but to make accurate figures."

276 COMPOSITION.

i/ment of

10. A danger to be guarded against in the employ m*
epigram is the danger of the half-truth. An epigram, it is to
be remembered, is not a principle of life but a way of saying
things ; and it derives its point, ordinarily, from the fact that
it detaches one side or aspect of a truth from the others and
gives it the transient zest of making its way alone. It re-
mains, however, only a half-truth ; it is true only as we make
adjustments and allowances ; and to shape one's whole thought
to it, or make it control the argument beyond its limited sense,
is to be one-sided, superficial, false.1

Note. — The epigram quoted above, " Language is the art of concealing
thought," is true only for such a man as wrote it, a diplomatic, scheming
man, skilfully disguising his real purpose while he seems to reveal it ; but
the other half (or in this case ninety-nine hundredths) of the truth remains
eternally true, that language is made for the revelation of thought. To
make the epigram all true, the maker must be all false ; as truth, it appeals
only to that small side of him which is sharp and secretive.

III. INVERSION.

In prose, as well as in verse,2 the writer has frequent occa-
sion to invert the grammatical order of parts in a sentence, —
to put verbs before their subjects, objects and predicate adjec-
tives before their verbs, adverbial words and phrases at the
beginning of the sentence. The purposes of such inversion
are here defined.

Inversion for Emphasis. — For each word or phrase of the
sentence there is a natural grammatical position, recognized

1 The following may contain an element of personal prejudice, but it is worth
weighing in this connection : " We do not believe in epigrams as a livelihood. They
are not good for the author. They are not good for the reader. They are in general
a choppy, sandy, dangerous kind of literature, bad in style, very uncertain as a
vehicle for conveying truth, and blessed only to the one reader among ten thousand
who happens to make his allowances right and to get the oracular response in the
right focus." — From The Independent, Nov. 10, 1887.

2 For the rationale of Inversion in prose, as distinguished from that in verse, see
above, pp. 113, 114 ; as related to rhythm, p. 212, 1.

ORGANIC PROCESSES. 277

instinctively, where it fulfils its function without attracting
special attention. As soon, however, as the word or phrase,
whatever it is, becomes the focus or stress-point of the idea,
the impulse is natural to move it out of its ordinary position ;
and the mere fact that it is found in an unwonted place gives
it distinction.

ii. As inversion is the result of the effort for emphasis, it
consists with and connotes a more trenchant and impassioned
mood ; and just as the mood may have varying degrees of
intensity, so the inversion may have various degrees, from the
bold revolution of the whole sentence structure to the mere
transference of an adverbial phrase. It is the part of a
rhetorical sense to know, in the case of any inversion, how
large is its area of influence, and how large it ought to be, in
other words, to estimate and secure the accurate expression
of the emphasizing mood.

Examples of Various Degrees of Inversion. — The emotional
intensity of the following examples can be felt and its varieties connected
with the manner of inversion.

i. Impassioned inversion. "Great is the mystery of space, greater
is the mystery of time."1 — " Fallen, fallen, is Babylon the great, and is
become a habitation of devils, and a hold of every unclean spirit, and a
hold of every unclean and hateful bird." 2 — " Little did I dream when
she added titles of veneration to those of enthusiastic, distant, respectful
love, that she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against
disgrace concealed in that bosom ; little did I dream that I should have
lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a
nation of men of honour and of cavaliers."3

2. Inversion for the stress of some sentence-member. "From the days
of infancy still lingers in my ears this opening of a prose hymn by a lady
then very celebrated." Here the adverbial phrase is emphasized by com-
ing first, and the subject, " this opening " by coming after its verb. — " In
the Channel, during fine summer weather, the wind, as the fishermen say,
goes round with the sun." Here emphasis is given to the place and time

1 De Quincey.

2 Revelation xviii. 2, Revised Version.

8 Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France,

278 COMPOSITION.

...

elements by placing the adverbs first. — The anticipative it and there effect
a kind of inversion by opening a greater freedom of movement for the
principal elements ; see above, p. 254.

3. An element, as an adverb for instance, placed first by inversion,
exerts an attraction on the verb, and especially on the auxiliary part of it,
to draw it before the subject; an attraction greater as the emotional
intensity of the sentiment is greater. In the German language this mere
attraction is sufficient to cause the inversion ; in English, however, it
requires a certain heightening of emphasis to justify it, otherwise it sounds
artificial. For example : " Little by little were their apartments stripped of
articles of ornament, piece by piece was their stock of furniture diminished ;
and the future offered them no hope." Here to say "were their apart-
ments stripped," etc., instead of " their apartments were stripped " has no
reason but the attraction of the adverb, and is crude. A similar unmotived
example of inversion is cited above, p. 113, note. Observe, however, that
in an impassioned sentence the attractions, being stronger, make the com-
plete inversion more natural, as in the sentence from Burke above, " Little
did I dream," instead of " Little I dreamed."

Inversion for Adjustment. — By far the most common and
practical use of inversion is that by which the ideas of one
clause or sentence are adjusted to those of another. This is
in obedience to a natural attraction : the predominant idea
of one sentence being a kind of stress-centre toward which
the like or correspondent idea of the next sentence is drawn,
with such power that not infrequently the attraction inverts,
in some way, the grammatical order.

12. Inversion for adjustment, while it effects emphasis of
the words displaced, subordinates this to continuity, its effort
being to group related ideas together, by making the suc-
ceeding sentence take up the thought, if it can, just where
the previous laid it down. The inversion, when resorted to,
makes this effort palpable.1

Examples. — " His friends took the necessary steps for placing him as
an apprentice at some shopkeeper's in Penrith. This he looked upon as

1 This subject prepares the way for the consideration of Dynamic Stress, which
in fact is a larger aspect of its principle ; see below, p. 340.

ORGANIC PROCESSES. 279

an indignity, to which he was determined in no case to submit." Here the
second sentence inverts the order of object and verb, simply from the
effort to get the word this at the beginning, nearest to its correspondent
idea in the preceding. — " It was not that I feared for ourselves. Us, our
bulk and impetus charmed against peril in any collision." Here the inver-
sion, while its purpose is clear, reaches the verge of violence. De Quin-
cey,1 from whom it is quoted, was very sensitive to these stress attractions
and accordingly inverted very freely. — In the following passage from Car-
lyle it will be seen how the inverted last sentence obeys the attraction of
correspondent ideas before : " Whereupon Mirabeau protesting aloud,
this same Noblesse, amid huge tumult within doors and without, flatly
determines to expel him from their Assembly. No other method, not even
that of successive duels, would answer with him, the obstreperous fierce-
glaring man. Expelled he accordingly is." 2 — In the following notice how
(in the part here bracketed) the inversion at once groups correspondent
adverbial elements together in the middle and relates correspondent prin-
cipal elements at the ends : " He has opened his far-sounding voice, the
depths of his far-sounding soul ; he can quell (such virtue is in a spoken
word) the pride-tumults of the rich, the hunger-tumults of the poor ; [and
wild multitudes move under him, as under the moon do billows of the
sea : ] he has become a world-compeller, and ruler over men."3 This last
construction, technically called Chiasm, will come up again under Repeti-
tion ; see below, p. 310.

IV. SUSPENSION.

The name given to this process implies the organic prin-
ciple on which it is founded — the principle of expectation.
Any means by which, whether on a small or a large scale,
the reader is put into the attitude of waiting 4 for some out-
come or solution, with his attention at the same time so
sharpened and guided that he shall recognize the solution
when it comes, is a suspensive element, carrying with it, as

1 De Quincey, The English Mail Coach, Section 2.

2 Carlyle, The French Revolution, Vol. i, Bk. iv, Chap. ii.
• Z*.

4 " Make 'em laugh ; make 'em cry ; make 'em wait," — these three precepts are
said to have been the rules on which Charles Reade depended to maintain the
interest of his novels.

280 COMPOSITION.

it does, the sense of incompleteness until some key-word or
thought closes the circuit.

At the same time, while the reader is waiting he is not idle.
It is the purpose of suspension not only to create distinction
for the object expected, but meanwhile to supply with com-
parative unobtrusiveness the details desirable to make the
object significant when it arrives. Thus, when the reader
reaches the outcome, he is in possession not only of it but of
all the grounds for it.1

Illustration. — That suspension is really a fostering of expectation
for the purpose of meeting it in some striking way is shown by the follow-
ing stanza from Thomas Moore, which rhetorically is nothing but a play
on the principle of suspension : —

" Good reader, if you e'er have seen,

When Phoebus hastens to his pillow,
The mermaids, with their tresses green,

Dancing upon the western billow ;
If you have seen at twilight dim,
When the lone spirit's vesper hymn

Floats wild along the winding shore,
If you have seen through mist of eve
The fairy train their ringlets weave,
Glancing along the spangled green ; —

If you have seen all this, and more,
God bless me ! what a deal you 've seen ! "

Here the last line, by its sudden turn, flashes back a light on all the non-
sense with which the reader has solemnly allowed the poet to load his
mind ; this by meeting expectation in an unexpected way.

Workmanship of Suspension. — The principal means by
which suspense is secured may here be noted, beginning with
mere phrasal suspension and going on to its broader appli-
cations.

13. Many of the simpler applications of suspension have
already been denned. Any means of sending the solution of

1 The order of investigation (see below, p. 446) and the inductive argumentation
(pp. 606 sqq.) are broader applications of suspension.

ORGANIC PROCESSES. 281

a clause or sentence beyond its natural close, or of making
provision for an added statement, is suspension ; such means
may be seen in the devices for prospective reference, in cor-
relative particles like either . . . or, not only . . . but also, and in the
sequential conjunctions so . . . that.1

Examples. — In the following the closed statement and the statement
suspended beyond its natural close are placed side by side.

" The world is neither eternal nor
the work of chance."

" Though his actions were fre-

" The world is not eternal, nor is
it the work of chance."

" His actions were frequently
blamed ; but his character was above
reproach."

" And there are certain elements
in the transaction that need careful
handling ; I shall therefore let my
action be shaped by circumstances."

quently blamed, his character was
above reproach."

"And there are certain elements
in the transaction that need so care-
ful handling that "I shall let my
action be shaped by circumstances."

It will readily be seen from these examples that the suspended structure
is useful for some effects, while for others it is better to leave the sentence
unsuspended.

14. As in suspension it is the main statement, or solution,
that is prepared for, so the structure calls for putting prelim-
inaries, of whatever kind, first ; such are adverbial modifiers
expressing time, place, or manner ; infinitives ; participial
phrases ; and conditional clauses introduced by if, when, and
the like. These various means may either be used singly,
with only a moderate suspensive effect, or combined or
repeated so as to make up quite a copious accumulation of
preliminary details.2

Examples. — The following sentences all carry on suspensive details to
considerable length and volume.

I. Adverbial phrases. " From the pompous and theatrical scaffolds of
Egmont and Horn, to the nineteen halters prepared by Master Karl to

1 See above, pp. 256, 258, 267. Two of the illustrative examples here given are
borrowed from Hill's Principles of Rhetoric, p. 224.

3 One type of sentence structure, the Periodic, is founded on the principle of
Suspension ; see below, p. 350.

282 COMPOSITION.

hang up the chief bakers and brewers of Brussels on their own thresholds —
from the beheading of the twenty nobles on the Horse-market, in the
opening of the Governor's career, to the roasting alive of Uitenhoove at
its close — from the block on which fell the honored head of Antony
Straalen, to the obscure chair in which the ancient gentlewoman of Am-
sterdam suffered death for an act of vicarious mercy — from one year's
end to another's — from the most signal to the most squalid scenes of sac-
rifice, the eye and hand of the great master directed, without weariness,
the task imposed by the sovereign." 1

2. Infinitives used suspensively. "To aim at making a commonplace
villa, and to make it insufferably ugly in each particular ; to attempt the
homeliest achievement and to attain the bottom of derided failure ; not
to have any theory but profit and yet, at an equal expense, to outstrip all
competitors in the art of conceiving and rendering permanent deformity ;
and to do all this in wThat is, by nature, one of the most . agreeable neigh-
borhoods in Britain : — what are we to say, but that this also is a distinc-
tion, hard to earn although not greatly worshipful ? " 2

3. Participial phrases. " Sitting last winter among my books, and
walled round with all the comfort and protection which they and my fire-
side could afford me, to wit, a table of high-piled books at my back, my
writing-desk on one side of me, some shelves on the other, and the feeling
of the warm fire at my feet, I began to consider how I loved the authors
of these books."3

4. Conditional clauses. " If you could see as people are to see in
heaven, if you had eyes such as you can fancy for a superior race, if you
could take clear note of the objects of vision, not only a few yards, but a
few miles from where you stand : — think how agreeably your sight would
be entertained, how pleasantly your thoughts would be diversified, as you
walked the Edinburgh streets ! " 4

15. But suspense is not wholly dependent on phrasal and
clausal arrangement, nor is it confined to the scale of the
sentence. In larger relations, too, sometimes in a passage
extending to a whole paragraph, some name or idea is kept
skilfully back, while descriptive characteristics enhancing its
significance are supplied. This is on the principle of putting

1 Motley, Rise of the Dutch Reptiblic, Vol. ii, p. 502.

2 Stevenson, Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh, Chap. vii.

3 Leigh Hunt.

4 Stevenson, Picturesque Notes on Edinburgh, Chap. vi.

ORGANIC PROCESSES. 283

the predicate before the subject, — predicative matter, that
is, before the person or thing of which it is descriptive.

Examples. — i. Sentence with the subject put last. "On whatever
side we contemplate Homer, what principally strikes us is his wonderful
invention." Here the order is, first, the adverbial element, second, the
predicate, finally the subject, " his wonderful, invention."

2. Sentence suspended in idea rather than in structure. " Spenser's
manner is no more Homeric than is the manner of the one modern
imitator of Spenser's beautiful gift, — the poet, who evidently caught from
Spenser his sweet and easy-slipping movement, and who has exquisitely
employed it ; a Spenserian genius, nay, a genius by natural endowment
richer probably than even Spenser ; that light which shines so unexpected
and without fellow in our century ; an Elizabethan born too late, the early
lost and admirably gifted Keats."1

3. A suspensive paragraph. " Was there then any man, by land or
sea, who might serve as the poet's type of the ideal hero ? To an Eng-
lishman, at least, this question carries its own reply. For by a singular
destiny England, with a thousand years of noble history behind her, has
chosen for her best beloved, for her national hero, not an Arminius from
the age of legend, not a Henri Quatre from the age of chivalry, but a man
whom men still living have seen and known. For, indeed, England and
all the world as to this man were of one accord ; and when in victory, on
his ship Victory, Nelson passed away, the thrill which shook mankind was
of a nature such as perhaps was never felt at any other death — so unani-
mous was the feeling of friends and foes that earth had lost her crowning
example of impassioned self-devotedness and of heroic honor." 2

Cautions and Regulatives. — While the suspensive structure
is useful for concentrating attention on focal points of signifi-
cance, and for imparting finish and unity to the diction, it
imposes upon the reader a greater burden of interpretation
than do other structures. It is against this difficulty that
regulatives are for the most part directed.

16. The principal caution is against accumulating an
excessive number of suspensive details. As these have to
be held in mind, a kind of dead weight, until the apodosis

1 Arnold, On Translating Homer, p. 203.

2 Myers, Wordsworth, p. 79.

284 COMPOSITION.

or key-statement is reached, it is easy to make the lo;
great to be carried.1

When, as will sometimes occur, it seems best to introduce
a long suspended structure, careful writers have much recourse
to two ways of relieving the burden of details: first, they use
the structure only with material that the previous discussion
has made familiar, as, for instance, by way of recapitulation ;
and secondly, they take care that the last detail of the series
shall in a sense summarize the rest, so that if only that is
retained yet the significance of the series shall not be lost.

Examples. — i. Of recapitulation. In the following suspended sen-
tence, from Cardinal Newman, the /^clauses are virtually a recapitulation
of the whole lecture which this sentence concludes : " If then the power
of speech is a gift as great as any that can be named, — if the origin of
language is by many philosophers even considered to be nothing short of
divine, — if by means of words the secrets of the heart are brought to

1 " Those who are not accustomed to watch the effects of composition upon the
feelings, or have had little experience in voluminous reading pursued for weeks,
would scarcely imagine how much of downright physical exhaustion is produced by
what is technically called the periodic style of writing : it is not the length, the
aTrepavToXoyia, the paralytic flux of words : it is not even the cumbrous involution
of parts within parts, separately considered, that bears so heavily upon the attention.
It is the suspense, the holding-on, of the mind until what is called the awddocus
or coining round of the sentence commences ; this it is which wears out the faculty
of attention. A sentence, for example, begins with a series of ifs; perhaps a dozen
lines are occupied with expanding the conditions under which something is affirmed
or denied : here you cannot dismiss and have done with the ideas as you go along ;
all is hypothetic ; all is suspended in air. The conditions are not fully to be under-
stood until you are acquainted with the dependency ; you must give a separate
attention to each clause of this complex hypothesis, and yet having done that by a
painful effort, you have done nothing at all ; for you must exercise a reacting atten-
tion through the corresponding latter section, in order to follow out its relations to
all parts of the hypothesis which sustained it. In fact, under the rude yet also artifi-
cial character of newspaper style, each separate monster period is a vast arch, which,
not receiving its key-stone, not being locked into self-supporting cohesion, until you
nearly reach its close, imposes of necessity upon the unhappy reader all the onus of
its ponderous weight through the main process of its construction. The continued
repetition of so Atlantean an effort soon overwhelms the patience of any reader,
and establishes at length that habitual feeling which causes him to shrink from the
speculations of journalists, or (which is more likely) to adopt a worse habit than
absolute neglect, which we shall notice immediately." — De Quincey, Essay on
Style ; Works, Vol. iv, p. 204.

ORGANIC PROCESSES. 285

light, pain of soul is relieved, hidden grief is carried off, sympathy con-
veyed, counsel imparted, experience recorded, and wisdom perpetuated, —
if by great authors the many are drawn up into unity, national character is
fixed, a people speaks, the past and the future, the East and the West are
brought into communication with each other, — if such men are, in a wTord,
the spokesmen and prophets of the human family, — it will not answer to
make light of Literature or to neglect its study ; rather we may be sure
that, in proportion as we master it in whatever language, and imbibe its
spirit, we shall ourselves become in our own measure the ministers of like
benefits to others, be they many or few, be they in the obscurer or the*
more distinguished walks of lifer — who are united to us by social ties, and
are within the sphere of our personal influence." *

2. Of a summarizing zy"-clause. " If I have had my share in any
measure giving quiet to private property, and private conscience ; if, by my
vote, I have aided in securing to families the best possession, peace; if I
have joined in reconciling kings to their subjects, and subjects to their
prince ; if I have assisted to loosen the foreign holdings of the citizen, and
taught him to look for his protection to the laws of his country, and for
his comfort to the good-will of his countrymen ; if I have thus taken my
part with the best of men in the best of their actions, I can shut the book :
I might wish to read a page or two more ; but this is enough for my
measure. I have not lived in vain." 2 Here the kind of summary given
by the italicized z_/"-clause is a summary of the significance needed to give
impressiveness to what comes after.

This second example, it will be noted, is recapitulatory ; and the first
example contains like this a summarizing //^clause, the summary pointed
out by the phrase " in a word."

17. It is often an advantage, when the suspensive details
will bear separation, to introduce the apodosis not all at once,
but piecemeal, each portion serving as a pointer toward the
solution.

Examples. — The following sentence is a stock example in rhetorical
treatises : " At last, with no small difficulty, after much fatigue, through
deep roads, and bad weather, we came to our journey's end." Here the
large accumulation of adverbial elements at the beginning makes a some-
what ponderous period. The following modification of its order has been

1 Newman, Idea of a University, p. 293.

2 Burke, Speech to the Electors of Bristol (Select British Eloquence, p. 310).

286 COMPOSITION.

suggested : " At last, with no small difficulty, and after much fatigue, we
came, through deep roads and bad weather, to our journey's end." This
certainly makes a more easily moving sentence.1 — In the following sen-
tence Carlyle employs this device, not so much to improve the period as
to be Carlylean: "They offer him stipends and emoluments to a hand-
some extent ; all which stipends and emoluments he, covetous of far other
blessedness than mere money, does, in his chivalrous way, without scruple,
refuse" 2

. 1 8. A balance should be observed between the protasis
and the apodosis of a suspended structure ; that is, when the
solution has been delayed it should have bulk and importance
enough to pay for the wait. It is thus a kind of cadence,
alike in thought and in movement.3 Particular caution should
be taken of clauses beginning with which or not; when added
to a period they are liable to introduce some thought not
reconcilable with the unity of the sentence.4 The "loose
addition " such an appendage to the period is technically
called.

Examples. — In the following, the accumulation of details seems an
increasing promise of a great ending, and then the brevity of the latter
gives the effect of much labor for insignificant result : " Shocked by the
suicide and treachery of a professed friend, embarrassed by the broken
condition of the bank, maddened by the wild clamor of an excited commu-
nity, stung by the harsh reports of the New York papers, dreading lest by
reason of some technicality his honor would be impeached, having borne
the terrible strain for four weary days, in a moment, without the slightest
premeditation, frenzied and insane, he committed the deed."

The examples from Cardinal Newman and Burke, under If 16, both
give good instances of the loose addition ; the sentences are not left with
the abrupt ending of the mere apodosis, but carried on to a balancing
fulness and explanation.

The evil of the negative or relative loose addition is exemplified in the
following sentences : " This reform has already been highly beneficial to

1 See discussion of this sentence, and principle involved, Spencer, Philosophy
of Style, pp. 26, 27. Also Bain, Rhetoric (old edition), p. 77.

2 Carlyle, French Revolution, Vol. i, Book vii, Chap. i.

3 For the claim of cadence, as related to rhythm, see above, p. 219.

4 For the requirements of sentence-unity, see below, p. 320 sqq.

ORGANIC PROCESSES. 287

all classes of our countrymen, and will, I am persuaded, encourage among
us industry, self-dependence, and frugality, and not, as some say, wasteful-
ness." 1 This addition ought to have been put, by way of suspense, after
the words "among us." — " After a long and tedious journey, the last part
of which was a little dangerous owing to the state of the roads, we arrived
safely at York, which is a fine old town." Here the subject-matter of the
which-claMse really belongs to a new sentence.

V. AMPLITUDE.

On the principle that everything should have bulk and
prominence according to its importance, it is a sound and
natural impulse, sometimes, to put thought in such fulness
and copiousness of statement as to make the reader delay
upon it and pay detailed attention to its successive stages.
The forms and applications of this impulse are here gathered
under the name Amplitude.

Note. — One of the specious pleas of superficial advisers in composi-
tion is that every statement should be put in the briefest and most pointed
shape. This plea is good for its fitting object and effect ; but the other
side, too, has a claim. For some purposes not parsimony but studied
abundance of words is more requisite ; this not from the effort to dilute
the thought and fill space but to set forth fairly its deeply felt wealth
of meaning. Such free range of utterance is one of the primal aims of
literary expression ; see above, p. 14. The antithesis to it, Condensation,
will be duly presented ; see below, p. 295.

Self- Justifying Forms of Amplitude. — Not all forms of
amplitude are reducible to grammatical laws ; beyond such
laws, indeed beyond the reach of rules, the impulse to ampli-
tude reveals a kind of labored deliberateness, reveals also a
certain exuberance of personal enthusiasm, which makes the
wealth of expression not a superfluity but an overflow, and
without which all mere devices are barren.2

1 Taken from Abbott, How to Write Clearly.

2 " And since the thoughts and reasonings of an author have, as I have said, a
personal character, no wonder that his style is not only the image of his subject, but
of his mind. That pomp of language, that full and tuneful diction, that felicitous-

288 COMPOSITION.

19. It is a frequent and spontaneous impulse, in the case
of important statements, to make some kind of preface or
approach to them, by words or clauses not indispensable to
the sense. By this means a distinction or momentum is
gained for cardinal parts of the thought.

Examples. — 1. The words it and there, as also the demonstratives,
have been mentioned under prospective reference ; here it is to be noted
again that they are in their nature merely prefacing expressions, useful for
the approach they make to important words ; serving as they do to bring
up the subject for contemplation before the statement is made about it.
For example, instead of saying, " A lad here hath five barley loaves," etc.,
the account gains a prefacing distinction by saying, " There is a lad here,
which hath five barley loaves, and two fishes ; but what are they among
so many? " It is by this prefacing word that we can gain emphasis for the
subject, e.g. " I would not believe [it was] he [that] listened to my
voice."

2. In a formal style, and notably in deliberative oratory, there is much
employment of such prefatory wording, in the shape of conditions or of
personal explanation. For example, instead of saying, " We sympathize
with the fortunes of an illustrious line," Gibbon says, " If we read of some
illustrious line so ancient that it has no beginning, so worthy that it ought
to have no end, we sympathize in its various fortunes ; nor can we blame
the generous enthusiasm, or even the harmless vanity, of those who are
allied to the honors of its name."1 — The following rather elaborate
preface introduces a weighty aphorism that is to play an important part in
the ensuing speech : " Was it Mirabeau, Mr. President, or some other
master of the human passions, who has told us that words are things

ness in the choice and exquisiteness in the collocation of words, which to prosaic
writers seem artificial, is nothing else but the mere habit and way of a lofty intellect.
Aristotle, in his sketch of the magnanimous man, tells us that his voice is deep, his
motions slow, and his stature commanding. In like manner the elocution of a great
intellect is great. His language expresses, not only his great thoughts, but his
great self. Certainly he might use fewer words than he uses ; but he fertilizes
his simplest ideas, and germinates into a multitude of details, and prolongs the
march of his sentences, and sweeps round to the full diapason of his harmony, as if
KtjSel' yaiojp, rejoicing in his own vigor and richness of resource. I say, a narrow
critic will call it verbiage, when really it is a sort of fulness of heart, parallel to that
which makes the merry boy whistle as he walks, or the strong man, like the smith in
the novel, flourish his club when there is no one to fight with." — Newman, Idea of
a University, p. 279.

1 Gibbon, Autobiography, Author's introduction.

ORGANIC PROCESSES. 289

They are indeed things, and things of mighty influence," etc.1 Here the
remark on the authorship of the aphorism is merely of prefatory use,
merely to gain greater distinction for its truth.

3. The approach to important junctures of plot or incident, by some
preparatory means, is a main principle of movement in narration ; see
below, p. 525.

20. For amplitude in the body of a sentence or passage,
various expedients, more than need be enumerated here, are
available. The following, as most outstanding, will serve to
illustrate their use : studied expression of all coloring, shad-
ing, modifying elements ; fulness in conjunctions and other
particles of relation ; careful supplial, often exaggeration, of
punctuation marks, in order to make the pauses slow. Some-
times also, using a more distinctively rhetorical device, a writer
will gain amplitude by deliberately making an erroneous or
incomplete statement and then correcting himself, as if taking
his reader into the laboring process of his own thinking.

Examples. — 1. Of amplitude in modifying elements. In the sen-
tence quoted from Cardinal Newman, p. 284, above, note how much of the
following clause is of a modifying nature : " If the origin of language is [by
many philosophers] [even] considered [to be nothing short of] divine."
The use of this, copious as it seems, is for his purpose obvious.

2. Of amplitude in connectives. The expression of the conjunction
after each word in the following compels due attention to every detail :
" ' Beef,' said the sage magistrate, 'is the king of meat; beef comprehends
in it the quintessence of partridge, and quail, and venison, and pheasant,
and plum-pudding, and custard.' "2

3. Of amplitude in punctuation. This has already been illustrated on
p. 131, above. The following additional example may show how the same
expression may be retarded in one clause and made rapid in another : —

" Ah ! you, too, start ! I am not then the fool
I call myself to be so burdened down —
You too it touches." 8

1 Webster, Speech on The Constitution not a Compact {Webster' 's Great
Speeches, p. 276). - SWIFT, Talc of a Tub, Section 4.

1 nil -, I'm 1 1 !r Paolo and Francesco, p. 36.

290 COMPOSITION.

4. Of amplitude by self -correction. In the following the writer, by
choosing a wrong word and then correcting it, makes both words play
their respective parts in the thought : " This intense, or rather (for intense
is not the right word) this extraordinarily diffused character, is often sup-
posed to be a mere fancy of Shakespere-worshippers. It is not so." 1 — In
the following, the parallelism of the antithesis is used to suggest a harsh
assertion, which then is denied, but even in the denial expressed : " Then
look at your people who love you and yet suffer ; whom you love, and who
are yet in want of food ; who ask nothing better than to bless you, and
who yet — No, I am wrong, your people will never curse you, Madame." 2

Forms needing Special Artistic Control. — Amplitude of expres-
sion, in any form, is ideally as artistic, as much governed by-
taste and fitness, as any rhetorical process whatsoever ; but
because some abuse of it is a fault into which careless, ill-
balanced, or tired writers are liable to fall, the whole process,
and especially certain forms of it, require watching and vig-
orous handling, to keep the thought from dilution.

- 21. Redundancy, or additions beyond the logical require-
ments of the sense, and pleonasm, additions beyond the
requirements of grammatical construction, are for the most
part uncalled for, being generally a crude repetition of what
is already sufficiently implied ; they are justified only as they
force into distinction something that otherwise would be
buried in an ordinary mould of phrase. It is thus the
passion or poetic vigor of the sentiment which keeps the
additions from being superfluous.3

Examples. — 1. Of needless redundancy or pleonasm. In the sen-
tence " They returned back again to the same city from whence they came
forth" the words here italicized are redundant. In the sentence, " The
different departments of science and of art mutually reflect light on each
other" either of the italicized expressions is sufficient without the other.

2. Of redundancy whose use is evident. In the quaint Scripture expres-

1 Saintsbury, History of Elizabethan Literature, p. 165.

2 Dumas, Twenty Years After, Vol. ii, p. 499.

3 " Redundancy is permissible for the surer conveyance of important meaning, for
emphasis, and in the language of passion and poetic embellishment." — Bain,
English Composition and Rhetoric, p. 71. Examples under 1 are quoted from him.

ORGANIC PROCESSES. 291

sions, " We have seen with our eyes ; we have heard with our ears" " He
that hath ears to hear, let him hear," the words here italicized enhance the
distinction. So also the common prefatory phrase, " As for me, I am only
indirectly concerned in the matter." — A close approach to redundancy,
logically, is seen in the essential epithets and sometimes in the decorative
epithets of poetry; see above, pp. 147, 148.

22. Circumlocution (literally "talking around "), a dif-
fuse way of speaking, not remediable by cutting out parts but
only by recasting, is capable alike of greater abuse and of
greater felicity than is redundancy. Fallen into negligently,
it betokens a languid-moving or indirect-acting mind ; adopted
overtly and of intent, it has good capacities of humorous
effect, though taste and sound literary sense are requisite to
keep it clear of fine writing.1

Examples. — 1. Of a sentence swollen with circumlocution. "He
[Pope] professed to have learned his poetry from Dryden, whom, when-
ever an opportunity was presented, he praised through the whole period
of his existence with unvaried liberality; and perhaps his character may
receive some illustration, if a comparison be instituted between him and
the man whose pupil he was." Professor Bain, who in quoting this from
Johnson 2 doctors the sentence to exaggerate the circumlocution, proposes
this substitute : " Pope professed himself the pupil of Dryden, whom he
lost no opportunity of praising; and his character may be illustrated by a
comparison with his master." 3

2. Of humoi'ous circumlocution. The following is spoken in the assumed
character of a professor of science : " There is one delicate point I wish to
speak of with reference to old age. I refer to the use of dioptric media
which correct the diminished refracting powers of the humors of the eye, —
in other words, spectacles." 4 — The following is not quite up to key in
taste: "Tim Kelly was again able to attend to his business — which,
strictly speaking, consisted in the porterage of other people's goods out of
their houses, without previous arrangement with the owners, and in a man-
ner as unobtrusive as possible."5

1 For Fine Writing, see above, p. 71.

2 Cf. Johnson, Lives of the Poets (Pope), Waugh's edition, Vol. v, p. 198.
:; Main, English Composition and Rhetoric, p. 72.
4 Hoi. Mi:s, Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, p. 173.
■' S. R. CROI 11 1 1 , CUg h'r/ly, Arab of the City.

292 COMPOSITION.

23. Euphemism (ev and <^/u, "to speak well" or
"smoothly") is a form of circumlocution whose justification
is that it states an unpleasant or delicate matter in softened
terms. The impulse is very natural to use it of what, stated
boldly, would shock the sensibilities or taste ; as death and
its accompaniments, crime, or vulgarity. Not infrequently, in
such matters, people get over-refined, losing vigor of realiza-
tion or, what is worse, obscuring their moral sense by a haze
of palliating words. This, of course, is to be guarded against.

Examples. — The last example quoted above is, it will be observed, an
elaborate euphemism for stealing. — " To pass away,"" to breathe his last,"
" to cease from his sufferings," are a few out of the many euphemisms for
death. — The following euphemizes intemperance : " The only thing we
ever heard breathed against his personal character is the suggestion that
his love of joyous intercourse with friends sometimes led him into a slight
excess of conviviality." J — The following euphemizes flogging : " Nicholas
Udall, sometime headmaster of Eton, and renowned for the thorough man-
ner in which he had laid to heart Solomon's maxim about sparing the rod
and spoiling the child, was its author." 2

VI. CLIMAX.

This (named from the Greek K\ifxa£, "a ladder ") is the order-
ing of thought and expression so that there shall be uniform
and evident increase in significance, or importance, or in-
tensity. It is more a principle than a process, being merely
the rhetorical embodiment of the law that a thought must
grow, must have progress ; which indeed it must, not only to
reach a natural culmination by increase of interest, but also
for the reader's sake, to make up for the mental energy that
the advance of the discourse is all the while using up.3 Like
antithesis, then, climax, while it may work on the narrow

1 From a newspaper article.

2 Nicoll, Landmarks of English Literature, p. 70.

3 This is shown above, under Economy ; see p. 25, 3.

ORGANIC PROCESSES. 293

scale of word and phrase, is really a universal requisite of
literary utterance, whatever its scope or stage.

24. For the construction of a verbal or phrasal climax
two directions may be given : first and most vitally, make
words of less intense degree in meaning1 (less trenchant, con-
crete, or picturesque) precede those of more ; and secondly,
if the degrees are not clearly marked, make words and
phrases of less length and sonority precede those of more.
That is the best climax where intensity and volume corre-
spond, aiding each other.

Examples. — 1. Climax of intensity. The commonly cited example,
from Cicero's oration against Verres, being also very clear and striking,
cannot well be omitted here : " It is an outrage to bind a Roman citizen ;
to scourge him is an atrocious crime ; to put him to death is almost parri-
cide ; but to crucify him — what shall I call it?" Here the speaker in-
creases the culmination by intimating lack of adequate words, and leaving
the matter to suggestion. — The following is a simple climax gradation:
" I know it, I replied, — I concede it, I confess it, I proclaim it." 2

2. Climax wherein length and structure of phrase reinforce intensity :
" This was unnatural. The rest is in order. They have found their pun-
ishment in their success. Laws overturned ; tribunals subverted ; industry
without vigor; commerce expiring; the revenue unpaid, yet the people
impoverished; a church pillaged, and a state not relieved; civil and military
anarchy made the constitution of the kingdom ; everything human and
divine sacrificed to the idol of public credit, and national bankruptcy the
consequence ; and to crown all, the paper securities of new, precarious,
tottering power, the discredited paper securities of impoverished fraud, and
beggared rapine, held out as a currency for the support of an empire, in
lieu of the two great recognized species that represent the lasting conven-
tional credit of mankind, which disappeared and hid themselves in the earth
from whence they came, when the principle of property, whose creatures
and representatives they are, was systematically subverted." 3

25. Inverted climax, wherein the order is from strong to
weak, may be either intentional or inadvertent. The inten-

1 For degree of meaning in words, see above, p. 50.

2 Holmes, Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, p. 72.

3 Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France.

294 COMPOSITION.

tional, or anticlimax, is employed to connote a special
quality, usually humor or satire. This is virtually a climax
built on a new principle ; that is, while it decreases in
intensity, it as uniformly increases in the spirit that animates
it. The inadvertent, called bathos, is a sudden drop below
the key 1 or expected progress of the passage, and has a flat
or ludicrous effect.

Examples. — i. Of intentional anticlimax. The following, by its prog-
ress from more distinguished personages to less, accumulates toward the
end a quite formidable suggestion of contempt : " Yet these stories are
now altogether exploded. They have been abandoned by statesmen to
aldermen, by aldermen to clergymen, by clergymen to old women, and by
old women to Sir Harcourt Lees." 2 — The following is an elaborate and
artificial anticlimax evolved from the topsy-turvy treatment of murder as
an art : " Never tell me of any special work of art you are meditating — I
set my face against it in toto. For, if once a man indulges himself in
murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing ; and from robbing
he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking ; and from that to inci-
vility and procrastination. Once begin upon this downward path, you never
know where you are to stop. Many a man has dated his ruin from some
murder or other that perhaps he thought little of at the time." 3

2. Of bathos. In the following, note the regular rise for three details,
and then the sudden drop : " What pen can describe the tears, the lamen-
tations, the agonies, the animated remonstrances of the unfortunate pris-
oners ? " — In the following, the order of clauses is flat : " Such a
derangement as, if immediately enforced, must have reduced society to its
first elements, and led to a direct collision of conflicting interests."

26. The negation of a climax is made in inverse order,
the strongest statement being denied first. Not only the
negative adverb directly used, but equally some privative
particle, such as without, against, unless, may act as a virtual
negative, and reverse the order of statement.

1 See an aspect of this discussed above, p. 136, 2.

2 Macaulay, Essay on History.
8 De Quincey, Supplementary Paper on Murder Considered as One of the Fine

Arts, Works, Vol. xi, p. 573.

ORGANIC PROCESSES. 295

Examples. — t. Of negated climax. The action of Alabama in
seceding from the Union was denounced by the Republicans as the conse-
quence of " sudden, spasmodic, and violent passion." In answering this
charge, the order would naturally be, " The action of Alabama was not due
to violent passion, nor to spasmodic, nor even to sudden passion."

2. Of a virtual negation of climax. " The chances were millions to one
against its success, against its continued existence." — a And thus he
enters public life before he has any convictions, or perceptions, or right
impressions even, of true citizenship."

VII. CONDENSATION.

The tendency of poetic diction, on account of its elevated
tone and sentiment to brevity or concentration, has already
been noted * ; a tendency in which, as likewise already said,
prose shares to an almost equal degree, though from more
complex motives. It is a tendency not less of mind than of
style. Condensation, in fact, is the result of the effort on
the part of a vigorous and direct mind to get its utterance
clean-cut, pithy, lightly and promptly moving.

So far as amenable to word and phrase, condensation may
be discussed under the heading of two main motives, which,
however, may both be effective at once.

Condensation for Vigor. — A strong impression is generally
a quick impression ; but not always is the quick impression
strong, nor is it the brevity that makes it strong. It must in
the condensation make up in vigor for what it loses in volume ;
and this it does, ordinarily, by making implication, suggestion,
connotation, do a work beyond what is explicitly said.

27. For expressing vigorously and in little space depend
more on the noun and verb than on qualifiers. These main
elements of the assertion are what contain its core and sig-
nificance ; qualifiers limit or restrict, and by so much are
apt to weaken the impression.2

1 See above, p. 141.

2 " The poet with a real eye in his head does not give us everything, but only
the best of everything. He selects, he combines, or else gives what is characteristic

296 COMPOSITION.

Illustrations. — It is somewhat difficult to make this palpable in a
telling example ; it must be done in part by contrast. Take for instance
this familiar passage from Shakespeare : —

" His life was gentle ; and the elements
So mix'd in him, that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, This was a man ! " 1

Consider how much more is really conveyed than if Shakespeare had
named his qualities — "This was a patriotic, conscientious, single-hearted
man." As it is here, we think all this and more.

The fault of the congestion of modifiers has already been described
above, p. 150. How easily and to what advantage they may sometimes be
spared, Sir Walter Scott has pointed out, in a letter justifying his favorite
octosyllabic measure in verse. He says : " If you will take the trouble to
read a page of Pope's Iliad, you will probably find a good many lines out
of wThich two syllables may be struck without injury to the sense. The
first lines of this translation have been repeatedly noticed as capable of
being cut down from ships of the line into frigates, by striking out the
said two-syllabled words, as —

' Achilles' wrath, to Greece the direful spring
Of woes unnumbered, heavenly goddess sing,
That wrath which sent to Pluto's gloomy reign
The souls of mighty chiefs in battle slain,
Whose bones unburied on the desert shore,
Devouring dogs and hungry vultures tore.' " 2

The question of verse aside, as " scarcely one of the epithets [is] more
than merely expletive," it is worth while to note the good effect of reading
the passage without the modifying material and see how much more weight
is laid on the main elements.

28. Another aid to vigor, producing the effect of conden-
sation indirectly, not so much by reducing the number of
words as by increasing their weight, is the employment of

only ; while the false style of which I have been speaking seems to be as glad to get
a pack of impertinences on its shoulders as Christian in the Pilgrim's Progress was
to be rid of his. One strong verse that can hold itself upright (as the French critic
Rivarol said of Dante) with the bare help of the substantive and verb, is worth acres
of this dead cord-wood piled stick on stick, a boundless continuity of dryness." -
Lowell, Essay on Spenser, Prose Works, Vol. iv, p. 272.

1 Shakespeare, Julius Ccesar, Act v, Scene 5.

2 Lockhart, Life of Scott, Vol. iii, p. 263.

ORGANIC PROCESSES. 29/

terms that contain some power of connotation ; among which
may be mentioned : concrete terms or cases representing the
whole class ; descriptive or onomatopoetic words ; tropes ;
allusive names or epithets. All these, if we consider how
much wealth of implication they convey, may be regarded as
highly condensed, concentrated means of expression.

Examples. — i. Of the concrete case for the class. " She taught Latin
herself, it is true, but as cautiously as she crossed a plank bridge, and she
was never comfortable in the dominie's company, because even at a tea-
table he would refer familiarly to the ablative absolute instead of letting
sleeping dogs lie." 1 Here " the ablative absolute " means typically any
and all difficulties of Latin ; it connotes the class.

2. Of descriptive words. These have been mentioned and exemplified
on p. 161, above ; one example here will illustrate their concrete vigor :
" I cannot pull well in long traces, when the draught is too far behind me.
I love to have the press tJwmping, clattering, and banging in my rear; it
creates the necessity which almost always makes me work best." 2 This is
said by Sir Walter Scott of his habit of authorship under pressure.

3. Of trope. This has been defined and exemplified above, p. 87.
Tropes are much used to embody sententious truths and aphorisms. The
following famous passage illustrates trope, concrete case (in third sen-
tence), and as a whole the concentrated significance of the aphorism :
" Man is but a reed, the weakest in nature, but he is a thinking reed. It is
not necessary that the entire universe arm itself to crush him. A breath
of air, a drop of water, suffices to kill him. But were the universe to
crush him, man would still be more noble than that w7hich kills him,
because he knows that he dies ; and the universe knows nothing of the
advantage it has over him."3

4. Of allusive epithet. This has been described and exemplified on
p. 91, above. An example or two further, to show its concentrative
suggestiveness : " It is true that Christ says it is better to enter life
maimed than, having two hands or two feet, to enter into hell fire; that is,
asceticism is better than death. But he who came eating and drinking did
not set to his followers an example of asceticism." 4 — " The author of the
'Lay' would rather have seen his heir carry the Banner of BelLnden gal-

1 Barrie, Sentimental Tommy, p. 233.

2 Lockhart, Life of Scott, Vol. viii, p. 258.
8 Pascal, Thoughts, p. 170.

4 Abbott, Christianity and Social Problems, p. 69.

298 COMPOSITION.

lantly at a foot-ball match on Carterhaugh, than he would have heard that
the boy had attained the highest honors of the first university in Europe." 1

29. A third form of condensation for vigor illustrates the
adage, " A good writer is known by what he omits." It is the
ellipsis of such elements and relations as the reader may be
trusted mentally to supply, and yet of things so important
that some vigor of thought is connoted in supplying them.
Such are: main sentence elements; indirect conjunctional
relations ; and colorings so essential to the truth that the
omission leaves the assertion over-absolute or sweeping.

Examples. — 1. Ellipsis of a main sentence element. In the following
the verb of the second clause is omitted, being easily supplied from the
first : " With Raphael's character Byron's sins of vulgarity and false criti-
cism would have been impossible, just as with Raphael's art Byron's sins of
common and bad workmanship a/'2 — The following illustrates the strength
of the negative no (cf. above, p. 268) to stand alone and dispense with a
substantive verb : " Voltaire entered too eagerly into the interests of the
world, was by temperament too exclusively sympathetic and receptive and
social, to place himself even in imagination thus outside of the common
circle. Without capacity for this, A no comedy of the first order. With-
out serious consciousness of contrasts, /\no humor that endures."3

2. Omitted or condensed conjunctional relation. In the following and
is used condensively for and yet : " They know that the world is transitory,
and they act as if it were eternal ; they know eternal life is a truth, and
they act as if it were a dream."4 — In the following the omission of and
makes a more compact construction : " Let him have never so righteous a
cause, /\ it is but the turn of a hand for God to prove him perverse."5 —
The adversative, being a very pronounced relation, may sometimes be
better omitted. The sentence " You say this ; I deny it " is stronger thus
condensed than if it were said "but I," or "I, on the other hand." — In
the following the structure is made more compact, and an awkward repe-
tition of but avoided, by omitting the correlate to not only (cf. p. 258,
above ) : " But this is an understatement of the case ; not only is the

1 Lockhart, Life of Scott, Vol. x, p. 227.

2 Matthew Arnold, Essays in Criticism, Second Series, p. 179.
8 M or ley, Voltaire, p. 141.

4 Mozley, Parochial Sermons, viii. Quoted Earle, English Prose, p. 80.

5 Genung, Epic of the Inner Life, p. 45.

ORGANIC PROCESSES. 299

literary study of the Bible permissible, ^ it is a necessary adjunct to the
proper spiritual interpretation."1

3. Omission of saving clauses and shadings. This is a characteristic
of the aphoristic sentence ; cf. p. 276, 10, above, on the Epigram. The
sentence " Respect is, incommode yourself," is so condensed as to require
much interpretative thought ; its editor thus explains it by putting in con-
ditions : " In order to testify our deference towards a person, it is necessary
to incommode ourselves, to put ourselves to trouble for him."2 — The
imperative is a useful means of condensing a condition or accompaniment ;
as, " Strip Virtue ( = if you strip) of the awful authority she derives from
the general reverence of mankind, and you rob her of half her majesty."3
— The following illustrates several forms of rapidity : —
" ' A dozen miles to make,
Another long breath, and we emerge.' I stood
I' the court-yard, roused the sleepy grooms. ' Have out
Carriage and horse, give haste, take gold!' said I."4

Condensation for Rapidity. — By this name rapidity may be
designated that quality of style by virtue of which the thought
is passed over lightly, with a smooth easy movement, and
without attempt at emphasizing salient points. Many of the
subordinate portions in any literary work call for merely such
light and rapid handling, and the leading means of effecting
this is by some form of condensation.

30. Rapidity is gained and vigor of impression lost by
using the comprehensive term as equivalent to a number of
particulars, the general instead of the specific. This is the
opposite of the treatment prescribed in H 28, and employed
for an opposite effect.

Examples. — " He devours literature, no matter of what kind." If a
rapid and casual statement is desired, this comprehensive word is enough ;
if, however, the fact is important it may be particularized : " Novels or
sermons, poems or histories, no matter what, he devours them all."

It is the importance or insignificance of an element for the present pur-
pose that determines whether it shall be particularized or lumped together

1 The Bible as Literature, p. 5.

2 Pascal, Thoughts, p. 208.

8 Ahbott, How to Write Clearly, p. 39.

4 Brown i n<;, The Ring and the Book, Iik. vi, 11. 1402-5.

300 COMPOSITION.

in a class term. To raise a minor element into factitious prominence by
particularization savors of bombast or pedantry ; as if, for instance,
instead of writing " in every British colony," one should write : " under
Indian palm-groves, amid Australian gum trees, in the shadow of African
mimosas, and beneath Canadian pines." Something noteworthy ought to
depend on each detail to justify such amplitude.

31. For the sake of the lighter touch and more rapid
movement, the impulse is to reduce expression to more atten-
uated form : as from the clause to the phrase or single word ;
from assertion to- implication ; from the additive clause to
the restrictive or its equivalent, the participial phrase ; from
positive statement to apposition or parenthesis.

Examples. — 1. Of the word-equivalent for a clause. There are many
adjectives in the language which have been coined as express equivalents
for clauses ; if they do not reproduce the whole thought of the clause they
reproduce all that is necessary for a rapid touch. The following, in
parallel columns, will illustrate this :

" The extent and fertility of the
Russian territory are such as to fur-
nish facilities of increase and ele-
ments of strength which no nation in
the world enjoys"

" The style of this book is of such
a nature that it cannot be understood."

" This is a feature of the enter-
prise on which nnich depends."

" The extent and fertility of the
Russian territory are such as to fur-
nish unparalleled facilities for the
increase of her population and
power.'*'

" The style of this book is unin-
telligible."

" This is a cardinal feature of the
enterprise."

2. Of implication. In the sentence, " Gladiatorial shows were first dis-
couraged, and finally put down, by the humanizing spirit of Christianity"
the italicized part gives both the agent and by implication the means ; it is
equivalent to " The spirit of Christianity was humanizing, and therefore,"
etc., or " Christianity, being of a humanizing spirit, discouraged," etc. The
ability to put much of the thought in implication, and the skill to know
just what, are among the most valuable elements of a writer's outfit. S
this further illustrated in the packed epithet, p. 149, above.

3. Of the relative clause. Of the two relative constructions 1 the
restrictive is the more rapid ; and a slow-moving construction may often be
considerably lightened by recasting so as to employ a restrictive instead of

1 For the connotation of the relative, see above, p. 236.

;

ORGANIC PROCESSES. 301

an additive clause. This is especially desirable when a relative occurs
within a relative. For example : " This curious design I bought of a nun
in France, who passed years of toil upon the conceit, which is of more
value than the material." Notice the greater lightness of, " who passed
years of toil upon a conceit that is of more value than the material." —
The participial construction,1 for either a relative or conjunctional clause
is very convenient for rapid touch ; for example : " Well, all this done,
( = when all this was done) away we went to the Hague : arriving there
( = at which place we arrived) just as the Museum closed for that day." 2

4. Of apposition and parenthesis. " We called at the house of a per-
son to whom we had letters of introduction, a musician, and, what is more,
a good friend X.o all young students of music." This appositive construc-
tion condenses the material of two sentences into one, equivalent to,
" He was a musician," etc. — If the material of the following parenthesis
were appended in a separate sentence, it would be too prominent for its
significance, too lengthy for its movement : " We are all (and who would
not be?) offended at the treatment we have received." — Sometimes the
parenthesis may be used for lightly slipping in a euphemism, e.g. " Frank
(the enemy may say, and there may be some difficulty in gainsaying him) is
mawkish ; Rose a doll; Don Guzman a famous 'portrait of a Spaniard'
craped and sworded duly ; Ayacanora any savage princess." 3

32. Ellipsis for rapidity differs from ellipsis for vigor
(If 29) in the fact that here the words omitted, instead of
exciting notice by their absence, are words of such subor-
dinate importance that they are not missed, while yet the
greater lightness produced by their omission is realized ; such
are relatives, common subjects, and common objects of verbs
and prepositions, — this last, technically called "splitting of
particles," being open to caution as a suspect.

Examples. — 1. Of ellipsis of the relative. This is most natural in
parts of the sentence remote from the central structure, as for instance
inside of prepositional phrases or subordinated clauses ; for example, " We
know the instructors were masters of the art /\ they taught." — Note at
the end of the following sentence the good effect of omitting the relative :
" For, whether in one or other form, . . . there is rest and peacefulness, . . .

1 For the participial phrase, see above, pp. 227-229.
- I11 zgerald, Letters and Literary Remains, Vol. i, p. 292.
:; SAINTSBURY, Essays in English Literature, Second Series, p. 380. For
parenthesis, its uses and cautions, see above, p. 129, 2.

302 COMPOSITION.

more beautiful yet when the rest is one of humility instead of pride, and
the trust no more in the resolution ^ we have taken, but in the Hand ^
we hold."1

2. Of common subjects of verbs. Where the subject would be re-
peated it may be expressed once for all ; as, " And now, in his turn, Lind-
say is gone also ; ^ inhabits only the memories of other men, till these
shall follow him ; and ^ figures in my reminiscences as my grandfather
figured in his." 2

3. Of the splitting of particles. " He came to, and was induced to
reside in, this city." — "Add to these a concert-master who can conduct
such scores from memory, a director who knows them by, and reveres
them at, heart, and the crown is complete."3 — This construction is to be
used only with caution, and with no long delay after the particle ; it is in
fact lacking in cleanness and elegance, and by some purists is altogether
condemned, on the ground, as one writer expresses it, that " Elegance pro-
hibits an arrangement that throws the emphasis on, and thus causes a sus-
pension of the sense at, a particle or other unimportant word."

VIII. REPETITION.

A great deal of the matter in any literary work is, and has
to be, repetitious. The same ideas, the same forms of ex-
pression, must recur again and again, in order rightly to be
impressed or made clear ; and the constant problem is how
to effect this repetition with skill and grace.4

Repetition of Grammatical Elements. — Asa matter of phrase-
ology, it is important first to notice certain grammatical
elements the repetition of which is essential to clearness.

33. A word essential to the construction of successive
members of the sentence should be repeated whenever its
omission would cause ambiguity or obscurity. This rule
applies to subjects, prepositions, and conjunctions.

Examples. — 1. Of repeated subject. In the following example the
w hie /^-clause intervening makes it necessary to repeat the subject intended:

1 Ruskin, Modern Painters (revised edition), Vol. i, p. 172.

2 Stevenson, Memories and Portraits, Works, Vol. xiii, p. 194.
8 Henderson, The Orchestra and Orchestral Music, p. 143.
4 For synonyms as instruments of repetition, see above, pp. 48, 49.

ORGANIC PROCESSES. 303

" He professes to be helping the nation, which in reality is suffering from
his flattery, and [he? or which?] will not permit any one else to give it
advice."

2. Repeat a preposition after a new conjunction, e.g. "He forgets the
gratitude that he owes to those who in less prosperous days helped him,
and [to] his uncle in particular." The repetition of prepositions in suc-
cessive phrases is too often neglected.

3. Of repeated conjunction. " When we look back upon the havoc
that two hundred years have made in the ranks of our national authors —
and, above all, [when] we refer their rapid disappearance to the quick suc-
cession of new competitors — we cannot help being dismayed at the pros-
pect that lies before the writers of the present day."1 The omission of
when here would make the second clause parenthetical, whereas it should
be paired with the first when-cla.use.

34. When the subject of a sentence is made up of several
members, or is burdened with amplifying details, a repeating
word like this or these, though strictly pleonastic, is necessary
as final preparation for the verb.

Examples. — " Gold and cotton, banks and railways, crowded ports and
populous cities — these are not the elements that constitute a great
nation." — " To write history respectably — that is, to abbreviate des-
patches, and make extracts from speeches, to intersperse in due propor-
tion epithets of praise and abhorrence, to draw up antithetical characters
of great men, setting forth how many contradictory virtues and vices they
united, and abounding in ' withs ' and ' withouts ' — all this is very easy." 2

Iteration. — In some circumstances repetition gains its
power by taking the bald form of iteration — that is, the set
recurrence of the identical word or phrase that it is desired
to make impressive.

35. The iteration of a word for emphasis — which from
its adaptedness to public discourse may be called oratorical
iteration — has a double effect. On the word repeated it has
an effect like the blows of a hammer, driving it in to the

1 Examples from ABBOTT, How to Write Clearly, pp. 31, 32.

2 Macaulay, Essay on History, beginning. For the summarizing and virtual
repetition of a series of conditional clauses, see above, p. 285.

304 COMPOSITION.

hearer's attention. But secondly, as soon as this iteration
becomes constant enough to be anticipated, the hearer con-
sciously reserves an increased share of his attention for the
successive elements that are new, marking with greater
interest the points of variation.

Examples. — " But what then ? Can you remove that distrust ? That
it exists cannot be denied. That it is an evil cannot be denied. That it is
an increasing evil cannot be denied."1 — "But the very first impression
made upon you in the slums is one of horrible leisure. What are the
people doing ? Nothing. What do they want to do ? Nothing. What
are they capable of doing ? Nothing. What do they want you to do for
them ? Nothing. What can you do for them ? Nothing." 2 — The fol-
lowing pushes this iteration to the verge of artifice : " Undoubtedly the
influence of Mr. Arnold did not make for good entirely. He discouraged
— without in the least meaning to do so, and indeed meaning quite the
contrary — seriousness, thoroughness, scholarship in criticism. He dis-
couraged — without in the least meaning to do so, and indeed meaning
quite the contrary — simplicity and unaffectedness in style." 3

36. In work where precision of thought and definition is
a main consideration, as for instance in exposition, leading
ideas, ideas whose expression has been reached with study as
the exactest possible, may sometimes best be repeated in iden-
tical terms, whenever they recur. This is iteration in the
interests of precision.

Example. — Matthew Arnold, who carried it in style to the extent of
mannerism, is the great practitioner of this mode of iteration. Professor
Earle 4 calls his use of it a " refrain," as if it were a poetical device. The
following passage illustrates it : —

" The practical genius of our people could not but urge irresistibly to
the production of a real prose style, because for the purposes of modern
life the old English prose, the prose of Milton and Taylor, is cumbersome,
unavailable, impossible. A style of regularity, uniformity, precision, bal-

1 Macaulay, First Speech on Parliamentary Reform.

2 From a magazine article by Alice Rollins.

3 Saintsbury, History of Nineteenth Century Literature, p. 388.

4 Earle, English Prose, pp. 161, 162.

ORGANIC PROCESSES. 305

ance, was wanted. These are the qualities of a serviceable prose style.
Poetry has a different logic, as Coleridge said, from prose; poetical style
follows another law of evolution than the style of prose. But there is no
doubt that a style of regularity, uniformity, precision, balance, will acquire
a yet stronger hold upon the mind of a nation, if it is adopted in poetry as
well as in prose, and so comes to govern both. This is what happened in
France. To the practical, modern, and social genius of the French a true
prose was indispensable. They produced one of conspicuous excellence,
supremely powerful and influential in the last century, the first to come
and standing at first alone, a modern prose. French prose is marked in
the highest degree by the qualities of regularity, uniformity, precision,
balance. With little opposition from any deep-seated and imperious
poetic instincts, the French made their poetry also conform to the law
which was moulding their prose. French poetry became marked with the
qualities of regularity, uniformity, precision, balance. . . . Our literature
required a prose which conformed to the true law of prose ; and that it
might acquire this the more surely, it compelled poetry, as in France, to
conform itself to the law of prose likewise. . . . Poetry, or rather the use
of verse, entered in a remarkable degree, during [the eighteenth] century,
into the whole of the daily life of the civilized classes; and the poetry of
the century was a perpetual school of the qualities requisite for a good
prose, the qualities of regularity, uniformity, precision, balance." 1

Repetition in Disguise. — Of the two objects proper to repe-
tition, iteration secures one, the reappearance of the thought,
but it is lacking in the other and more important, the forward
movement. As the thought goes on it should grow ; and if
its means of progress be repetition, the repetition should if
possible be made the occasion of successive enrichment of
the idea, or of putting it in varied aspects and emphasis.
This object, while it does not impair the essential repetition,
operates in many ways to disguise it.

37. Where the repetition centres in some term, the class-
name may in the repeat take the place of the particular, or a
defining term may be put for the thing defined ; where it
centres in incident or details, some equivalent phraseology,
as for instance negative for positive, may be substituted.

1 Matthew Arnold, Preface to Johnson's Lives of the Poets, p. xxii.

306 COMPOSITION.

Examples. — Of class-name for individual. " There came a viper out of
the heat and fastened on his hand. And when the barbarians saw the
venomous beast hang on his hand, they said among themselves, No doubt
this man is a murderer, whom, though he hath escaped the sea, yet ven-
geance suffereth not to live. And he shook off the beast into the fire, and
felt no harm."1 — " In civilized society law is the chimney through which
all that smoke discharges itself that used to circulate through the whole
house and put everybody's eyes out. No wonder, therefore, that the vent
itself should sometimes get a little sooty." 2

2. Of defining and descriptive terms for original. " But the age of
chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, oeconomists, and calculators, has suc-
ceeded ; and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever. Never, never
more, shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud sub-
mission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept
alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom. The
unbought grace of life, the cheap defense of nations, the nurse of manly senti-
ment and heroic enterprise, is gone ! It is gone, that sensibility of principle,
that chastity of honor, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired
courage whilst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched,
and under which vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness." 3
Here the original term chivalry is represented, definitively and descrip-
tively, in no fewer than nine different ways.

3. Of varied phrase. In the following the repeat is made by a double
negative : " ' Chariot,' said Athos to him, ' I particularly desire you to take
care of Planchet, M. d.'Artagnan's servant, as long as he stays. He likes
good wine ; you have the cellar key. He also does not dislike a good bed.
Look after that also, I beg of you.'"4 — It is of course impracticable to
name all the ways in which the phrase may be varied in repetition. The
following will illustrate several : " A day passed away and his mother was
not there ; another flew by, and she came not near him ; a third evening
arrived, and yet he had not seen her ; and in four-and-twenty hours he was
to be separated from her — perhaps for ever."5

38. In the recapitulation of a series of details, in which
the going back over the terms has to be a kind of iteration,

1 Acts xxviii. 3-5.

2 Sir Walter Scott. Quoted by E. Paxton Hood, Scottish Characteristics,
p. 125.

3 Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, p. 89.

4 Dumas, TwentyYears After, Vol. i, p. 173.

5 Dickens.

ORGANIC PROCESSES. 307

the ill effect of such iteration is often obviated by taking the
inverse order.

Examples. — " Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears
heavy, and shut their eyes ; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their
ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed." x —
" His religion, his education, his life in this unsatisfying world, are not the
life, the education, the religion, of the great majority of human kind."2 —
" As the soldier is tempted to dissipation, and the merchant to acquisitive-
ness, and the lawyer to the sophistical, and the statesman to the expedient,
and the country clergyman to ease and comfort, yet there are good clergy-
men, statesmen, lawyers, merchants, and soldiers, notwithstanding; so
there are religious experimentalists, though physics, taken by themselves,
tend to infidelity; but to have recourse to physics to make men religious is
like recommending a canonry as a cure for the gout, or giving a youngster
a commission as a penance for irregularities." 3

39. When a thought is expected to grow by repetition and
yet remains as lean as ever, merely adding synonymous ex-
pressions and marking time, as it were, without advancing,
the fault is called Tautology. It generally betokens either
heedlessness or poverty of thought, and is to be obviated, if
a tautology in terms, by making sure that each successive
term that repeats adds enough meaning to pay for repeating ;
if a tautology in phraseology, by putting the repeat in a
different stress, thus taking occasion to emphasize new
aspects of the thought.4

Examples. — 1. Of unredeemed tautology. The following, from an
old writer, merely pairs off synonyms without making the second contribute
at all to enrich the first: " Particularly as to the affairs of this world,
integrity hath many advantages over all the fine and artificial ways of dis-
simulation and deceit ; it is much the plainer and easier, much the safer*
and more secure way of dealing with the world ; it has less of trouble and
difficulty, of entanglement and perplexity, of danger and hazard in it. The

1 Isaiah vi. 10.

- LANG, I'-ssays in Little, p. 116.

8 Newman, Discussions and Arguments, p. 299.

4 For this variation of stress as applied to sentences, see below, p. 342.

308 COMPOSITION. '

arts of deceit and cunning do continually grow weaker, and less effectual
and serviceable to them that use them." 1 — Many pairs of terms have come
into the language which, though tautological, are used without analysis as
single terms, as " ways and means," " head and front," " end and design " ;
but as soon as they are discriminated, as is done by the word neither in
the following example, the essential tautology becomes evident : " It
might be accounted a tribute to the enterprise of Old Sledge that moun-
tain barriers proved neither let nor hindrance, and here in the fastnesses was
held that vivacious sway, potent alike to fascinate and to scandalize." 2

2. Of tautology obviated by variation. In the following (already
quoted on p. 50, above) the nearly synonymous words are justified by their
evident climax : " I am astonished, I am shocked to hear such principles con-
fessed ; to hear them avowed \n this house and in this country." — In the
following the verb had failed has the stress at first, and then in the repeat
is thrown into subordinate relation : " I had, indeed, begun the task, and
had failed ; I had begun it a second time, and, failing again, had aban-
doned my attempt with a sensation of utter distaste."3 — In the following
stress is laid first on the adverb, and then on the verb : " In the literary
movement of the beginning of the nineteenth century the signal attempt to
apply freely the modern spirit was made in England by two members of the
aristocratic class, Byron and Shelley. . . . But Byron and Shelley did not
succeed in their attempt freely to apply the modern spirit in English litera-
ture ; they could not succeed in it ; the resistance to baffle them, the want
of intelligent sympathy to guide and uphold them, were too great."4

Repetition of Construction. — The forward movement of the
thought is effected, not by the successive enumeration of
details merely, but by the perpetual pairing and balance of
elements ; which latter, as they must be thought of together,
have to be so expressed that their mutual relation is apparent.

40. Elements of the thought that are paired together, or
that answer to each other, should evince that relation by
being of like speech-part-ship and like form of phrase. This
is called Parallel Construction.

1 Tillotson. Cited by Bain, English Composition and Rhetoric, p. 68.

2 Murfree (Charles Egbert Craddock), In the Tennessee Mountains,
p. 81.

3 Kinglake, Eothen, Preface.

4 Matthew Arnold, Essays in Criticism, First Series, p. 176.

ORGANIC PROCESSES. 309

Examples. — In the following note how the proposed amendments, in
brackets, aid in the mutual relations of the sentence-elements : " He had
good reason to believe [or, for believing] that the delay was not an accident
[accidental] but premeditated, and for supposing [to suppose, or else, for
believing, above] that the fort, though strong both by art and naturally
[nature], would be forced by the treachery of the governor and the indolent
[indolence of the] general, to capitulate within a week."1

Not infrequently words are iterated to give a better parallelism of con-
struction ; as, " If I have had my share in any measure giving quiet to
private property and private conscience."2 — The following is a rather
striking example : " He looked unlike other men, with his tall thin figure,
his long thin face, his nervous thin hands." 3

In the following the lack of the words here supplied in brackets leaves
the phrases unbalanced : " The Aryan genius ranges far and wide, observes,
compares, classifies, generalizes, both in the world of matter and [in the
world] of spirit." 4

41. A broader application of parallel construction is made
in what is called Balanced Structure, wherein clauses or sen-
tences are related to each other by likeness of construction,
and by similarity or antithesis of thought. The sharp relief
thus effected between statements is an aid to clear definition
and to memory.

Examples. — Balance of clauses. "It contains the history of a miracle,
of Creation and Redemption ; it displays the power and the mercy of the
Supreme Being ; the probable therefore is marvellous, and the marvellous
is probable."5 — " They habitually ascribed every event to the will of the
Great Being, for whose power nothing was too vast, for whose inspection
nothing was too minute." 6

Balance of sentences. " If they were unacquainted with the works of
philosophers and poets, they were deeply read in the oracles of God. If
their names were not found in the registers of heralds, they were recorded
in the Book of Life. If their steps were not accompanied by a splendid
train of menials, legions of ministering angels had charge over them." 6

1 Abbott, How to Write Clearly, p. 34.

2 Burke, as quoted above, p. 439.

8 Matthews, Aspects of Fiction, p. 129.

4 McCurdy, History, Prophecy, and the Monuments, Vol. i, p. 5.

6 Johnson, Lives of the Poets, Vol. i, p. 184.

6 Macaulay, Essay on Milton.

310 COMPOSITION.

Sometimes in the balancing members an inversion of order may alter-
nate the stress ; e.g. " To leave the world, or any part of the world, is to
follow John the Baptist ; to follow Christ is to enter the world and every
phase of the world." x

Sometimes, where there is a large number of balancing members, they
may with elegance be broken into varying groups. In the following fine
passage from Cardinal Newman the groups of uniform clauses are set off
by lines : " He writes passionately, because he feels keenly ; forcibly,
because he conceives vividly; | he sees too clearly to be vague; he is too
serious to be otiose; | he can analyze his subject, and therefore he is rich;
he embraces it as a whole and in its parts, and therefore he is consistent ;
he has a firm hold of it, and«therefore he is luminous. | When his imagina-
tion wells up, it overflows in ornament ; when his heart is touched, it
thrills along his verse."2

1 Abbott, Christianity and Social Problems, p. 69. This very practical though
rather rhetorical inversion in the balancing members of a sentence is called
Chiasmus, from the Greek letter Chi (X), which character was used by the ancient
rhetoricians to mark the cross relation ; thus : —

"To leave the world v^^- is to follow John the Baptist;
to follow Christ — ^^n is to enter the world " . . . .

2 Newman, Idea of a University, p. 292.

CHAPTER X.
THE SENTENCE.

Thus far our study has dealt with materials and detached
processes, waiving for the time the consideration of finished
results. It is time now to take up this latter subject; and in
the coming three forms of utterance, the Sentence, the Para-
graph, and the Composition as a Whole, it will be treated
through successive applications of what are essentially the
same underlying principles, varying only in scale and scope.
In the sentence, then, we reach the first complete organic
product of thinking. As such, and as embodying on its
scale the qualities necessary to effect the purpose of the
whole work, the sentence may be regarded as the unit of
style.1

Definition of the Sentence. — A sentence is a combination of
words expressing a single, complete thought.

However complex it may be — and it may attain a consid-
erable degree of complexity — the thought of the sentence
must be single, must with all its colorings and details leave on
the reader's mind one focal impression ; however restricted its
range or inclusion, it must appear as a complete and finished
utterance.

1 " For the sentence is the unit of style ; and by the cadence and music, as well as
by the purport and bearing, of his sentences, the master of style must stand or fall."
— Saintsbury, Miscellaneous Essays, p. no. — "From the arrangement of accord-
ing letters, which is altogether arabesque and sensual, up to the architecture of the
elegant and pregnant sentence, which is a vigorous act of the pure intellect, there is
scarce a faculty in man but has been exercised. We need not wonder, then, if per-
fect sentences are rare, and perfect pages rarer." — Stevenson, On Some Technical
Elements of Style in Literature, Works, Vol. xxii, p. 265.

31*

312 COMPOSITION.

Note. — The typical sign of completeness is the period, the mark of a
full-rounded declarative sentence. Other marks of end-punctuation, the
exclamation mark, the interrogation mark, the dash, are really marks of
incompleteness : the exclamation signifying rather an emotional outburst
than a composed thought; the interrogation implying and requiring an
answer to complete it ; and the dash confessedly an abrupt dropping of
the subject. Thus, while grammatically there may be exclamatory and
interrogative as well as declarative sentences, from the point of view of
rhetorical construction these are somewhat out of the literal order, being
in fact expressions of emotional connotation ; see above, pp. 95, 96.

I. ORGANISM OF THE SENTENCE.

Sentences have both a grammatical and a rhetorical organ-
ism : the grammatical having to do with the parts of speech,
their offices and relations ; the rhetorical dealing rather with
the logical bearings and dependencies of the thought. With
the grammatical organism our business at present is only
indirect and casual ; the assured mastery of it must, at this
stage of study, be presumed. (With the rhetorical organism
of the sentence a writer must get the same intimate familiarity
as with the grammatical ; the sense of it, and of its require-
ments, must become ingrained in his mind ; and, as accessory
to this, he needs to form the habit of parsing his sentence
rhetorically, settling its unitary and distributive relations, its
main and tributary lines, as he goes along. No other habit
or procedure in rhetoric can outweigh this in importance.

Elements of Structure. — The same essential structure under-
lies all forms of composition, from the sentence, the first
complete utterance of a thought, onward. It is a dual struc-
ture, a structure framed on two elements. There is first the
basic idea or term, what the assertion is about, and secondly
the assertion or declaration itself, what is said about this.

THE SENTENCE. 313

These two elements are always present to guide and centralize
the thinking ; and whether we call them subject and predicate,
as in the sentence, or topic and enlargement, as in the para-
graph, or proposition and proof, as in a debate, or theme and
treatment, as in an essay, is merely an incident of the scale
and kind of production on which we are working.

The Framework. — Our analysis of sentence structure, then,
taking the grammatical core of substantive {i.e. noun or pro-
noun) and verb, views it in the more logical light of subject
and predicate : the subject, in the large sense that about
which something is said ; the predicate, also liberally construed
as that which is said about the subject. These, while in most
cases modeled on the grammatical nucleus, are not the slaves
of grammar ; for instance, a subject, though typically a nomi-
native, may for rhetorical distinction be put as the object of
a verb, yet remain just as truly the thing about which an
assertion is made ; the predicate, likewise, though it be
crowded into some sequential clause, or be in part left to
implication, retains its essential character of information or
statement about the subject. By their function it is, rather
than by their form, that these elements are to be rhetorically
interpreted ; and, as preliminary to the skilful massing of his
sentences, the writer should acquire the instinctive sense of
what in his work is really the subject of discussion, whatever
its syntax, and what is essentially predication or predicative
matter.

Examples. — The following sentences, purposely chosen for their
simplicity, will bring to light the essential subject-matter and predication,
as distinct from the grammatical. The grammatical nucleus is put in
small capitals.

i . The rhetorical framework modeled on the grammatical core. " Our
earthly life, then, gives promise of what it does not accomplish."1 —
f* HOMER, for the glory of whose birthplace none but the greatest cities

1 Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons^ Vol. iv, p. 216.

314 COMPOSITION.

dare contend, is alike the highest and the easiest in poetry. He-
rodotus, who brought into Greece more knowledge of distant countries
than any or indeed than all before him, is the plainest and gracefulest
in prose." 1 In all these, if we ask what is talked about and what is
asserted of it, the substantive and verb give the main clue.

2. The subject of remark grammatically disguised. " On seeking for
some clue to the law underlying these current maxims, we may see
shadowed forth in many of them, the importance of economizing the
reader's or hearer's attention."2 Here the grammatical substantive, verb,
and object give very little clue to what the sentence is about ; its real sub-
ject of remark, economizing attention, is sent to the end as the object of a
preposition. — The same is noticeable in the following: "There is not,
and there never was on this earth, a work of human policy so well
deserving of examination as the Roman Catholic Church."3 Here the
subject of remark is the Roman Catholic Church, sent to the end again
and put in a clause for distinction.

3. The predicative matter grammatically disguised. " This is a thought
which will come upon us not always, but under circumstances."4 Here
the grammatical framework is as indicated above ; the rhetorical is rather
This thought will come. The predication is put into a which-c\&\\SQ. —
"The second point to be observed is that brightness of color is altogether
inadmissible without purity and harmony."5 Here the main predicative
matter of the sentence is put in a sequential clause, being prepared for by
a prospective clause : brightness is inadmissible is the real assertion.

In the sentence quoted from Landor above we might say the clauses
that define Homer and Herodotus respectively (" for the glory of whose
birthplace," etc., and "who brought into Greece," etc.) are part of the
predicative matter tacked to the subject by relative clauses ; they really
supply one side of the distinction asserted of these authors.

What is true of the whole sentence is true in its turn of any
constituent clause. By its subject or its connective its relation
with the rest of the sentence is revealed, whether one of
subordination or of coordination ; but as soon as we get
beyond this, in all its internal framework the clause is a

1 Landor, Imaginary Conversations, Vol. i, p. 94 (Diogenes and Plato).

2 Spencer, Philosophy of Style, p. 11.

3 Macaulay, Essay on Von Rankers History of the Popes.

4 Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. iv, p. 217.
6 Ruskin, Modern Painters, Vol. ii, p. 195.

THE SENTENCE. 315

complete sentence by itself, with the same problems of mass,
order, and stress that obtain in the larger structure.

Examples. — In the sentences quoted above, we come upon the follow-
ing clausal frameworks : " it does not accomplish," " none . . . dare con-
tend " ; "who brought . . . knowledge"; "which will come"; "brightness
... is inadmissible."

The Tributary Portions. — In three main ways this sentence
framework may take on tributary matter.

i. There is first the matter requisite to define and give
proper setting to the subject. This, as the subject itself is a
substantive, is adjectival in nature, that is, it fixes such limits
and qualities of the subject as are needed for use in the
sentence, and this it does in the form of word, or phrase, or
clause.

2. Secondly, and with the same range of forms open to it,
there is the matter requisite to expand and round out the
predicate. This, so far as it centres about the verb, is adver-
bial in nature, giving accompaniments of time, place, conditions,
manner, and the like. But as the verb may take an object,
or be conjoined with a predicate noun, adjectival modifiers
may be affixed to these as to the subject of the sentence.

3. Finally, the sentence itself, within the boundary of the
same period, may take on another sentence, or more than one,
so closely connected with it in idea that the pair or cluster
add together to form a composite thought. In this case it is
idle to speculate which is principal and which tributary ; they
have a coordinate relation.

It is to be remembered, moreover, that wherever there is a
noun, whether in main sentence, clause, or phrase, and
wherever there is a verb, whether in the form of principal
verb, or infinitive, or participle, the question of modification
is always open ; and so the tributary tracts of the sentence
may in turn have their tributaries, until the grammatical rami-

316 COMPOSITION.

fications become exceedingly complex, and the problem of
steering a straight and clear course through is no small one.

Example. — The following sentence will show in a comparatively simple
example some of the workings of these three tributary lines. For clearer
distinction it is put in tabular form : —

Coordinate Sentence.

THIS

EVER IS, AND MUST
BE, THE PURPOSE

of the sons of men."1

Main Sentence.

Subject : " Their dim purpose, —

very dim often, yet struggling always
to become clearer, and utter itself in
act and word, —

Predicate : was, and ever is, no other than this :
To conform themselves to the Eter-
nal Laws, — Laws of Necessity, re-
vealed Laws of God, or whatever
good or worse, or better or best
name they give it :

Here the tributary portions are devoted mostly to defining the two ideas
dim and Laws, the first modification being thus adverbial, the second
adjectival or appositive. The coordinate sentence repeats the idea more
sententiously, and with order of subject and predicate reversed.

II.

Types of Structure. — In this intricate mesh work of verbal,
phrasal, and clausal forms, functions main and tributary, rela-
tions coordinate and subordinate, it is important to recognize
if we may, in the case of any sentence, some underlying type
or norm from which we may estimate as from a chart the
various lines of construction. For this purpose we may here
adopt Professor Earle's classification.2

Starting from the familiar grammatical distinction of sen-
tences as simple, compound, and complex, we may distinguish
three main types, which, though not always rigidly or exclu-

1 Carlyle, Historical Sketches, p. 2.

2 Earle, English Prose, pp. 76-91.

THE SENTENCE. 317

sively adhered to,1 are comprehensive enough to include singly
or by intermixture the great body of procedure.

i. The Simplex Type. — Assuming, as in all these defini-
tions, that the verb is the key to the sentence's idea, and that
the conjunction is the key to its articulation, we may define
the simplex as a sentence with only one principal verb, or,
what comes to the same thing, without an interlinking
conjunction.

Sentences of this type, plain as it is, may assume a consid-
erable appearance of intricacy by cumulated subjects, and by
phrasal or participial adjuncts to subject or predicate or both.
The conjunctions that appear between subject members or
adjuncts are, it is to be observed, not elements of sentence
articulation, but merely verbal connectives.

Examples. — i. Of the plain simplex. "Self-preservation is the first
rule of every community." " In the window of his mother's apartment lay
Spenser's ' Fairy Queen.' " 2 Here, although some phrasal modifiers are
introduced, the framework of subject and single verb is clear.

2. Of the simplex disguised by other matter. " For somewhat more
than four hundred years, the Roman Empire and the Christian Church,
born into the world almost at the same moment, had been" developing
themselves side by side as two great rival powers, in deadly struggle for
the possession of the human race." 3 Here there is a double subject, its
two members modified by a participial phrase ; there is an adverbial time
phrase ; and the object of the verb has a long appositional addition ; but
the single verb, had been developing, holds the sentence to its underlying
simplex type.

2. The Composita Type. — The essential character of this
type is coordination. It is the kind of sentence wherein the
predication is made by two or more principal verbs, expressed

1 " The reader must not expect to find pure examples of the above types ready to
hand in every page, nor will he be justified in concluding that therefore the types

Ives are imaginary and unreal. It is essential to freedom and elasticity and
beauty of discourse, that there should be no obtrusive persistence of rigid types ; —
but at the same time it is useful for us to observe or by analytic process to disengage
such types, because they are the elementary factors of an endless variety." — lb., p. 87.

2 Johnson, Lives 0/ the Poets, Cowley. 3 Kingsley, Hypatia, Preface.

318 COMPOSITION.

or understood, and wherein the conjunctions are of the coordi-
nating class.1 These several verbs may either be predicates
of the same subject, or may have their separate subjects ; in
which latter case the whole sentence is a cluster of sentences
bound into one by a logical connection.

In two ways the composite character of this type of sen-
tence, while still intact, may be somewhat disguised. In a
series of more than two predications the connecting conjunc-
tions may be expressed only with the last, or may be wholly
omitted.2 And secondly, when the several verbs would natu-
rally be the same if expressed, the verb may be expressed only
once for the series.

Examples. — i. Of plain composita. With a single subject: "The
righteous shall inherit the land, and dwell therein forever." — With a
subject for each verb : " Art makes knowledge a means, but science makes
it an end " ; " Then this world will fade away, and the other world will
shine forth " ; " The advice is the same, though the reason of it is differ-
ent." Here the several coordinating conjunctions are but, and, and though.
Clusters of more than two members : " In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God " ; " He provides,
and she dispenses; he gives commandments, and she rules by them; he
rules her by authority, and she rules him by love ; she ought by all means
to please him, and he must by no means displease her." Here each of the
semicoloned members is itself a composita of two members.

2. Of composita disguised. The example last quoted shows asyndeton
between the larger members. The classical example of asyndeton is, " I
came, I saw, I conquered." — Ellipsis of repeated verb: "They never see
any good in suffering virtue, nor a, any crime in prosperous usurpation."
Here the full sense would be " nor do they see any crime," etc. " It is not
the business of the Arts to worry the reason, but rather a, to stimulate
the imagination, and a, soothe the feelings of mankind."3

3. The Evoluta Type. — The essential character of this type
is subordination. It is the kind of sentence wherein one main

1 For coordinating conjunctions, see above, p. 260.

2 This latter ellipsis, which gives the condensing effect of abruptness (cf. p. 298,
above) is technically called Asyndeton.

8 These quotations are nearly all taken from Professor Earle, op. cit., pp. 78, 79.

THE SENTENCE. 319

assertion has appended to it ancillary clauses giving some
kind of explanatory or limiting matter. These helping clauses
may be appended either to the noun parts of the sentence
(subject, object of a verb, object of a preposition), in which
case its connective is a relative pronoun or relative adverb ;
or to the verb parts (predicate, infinitive, participle), in which
case its connective is a conjunction of the subordinating class.1
Often the Evoluta has an inverted arrangement, the appended
clauses, of condition, time, explanation, and the like, being
placed first, and thus accumulating for the main predicate the
distinction of suspensive structure.2

Examples. — i. Of various ways of introducing subordinate clauses.
The introducing words, conjunctions or relatives, are here italicized.
" People usually consider that an opinion by which no fee is earned is worth
just what it cost." — " Englishmen are prepared to believe that if their
country is to continue to be the greatest nation of the world, it must be
as the centre of a naval confederacy which has its harbors in every sea." —
r The Catholic gentry, who had been painted as longing for the coming of
the stranger, led their tenantry, when the stranger came, to the muster at
Tilbury." — " Milton, who, in his letter to Hartlib, had declared, that to
read Latin with an English mouth is as ill a hearing as Low French,
required that Elwood should learn and practice the Italian pronunciation,
which, he said, was necessary, if he would talk with foreigners."

2. Of inverted order of evolute clauses. " That I have ta'en away this
old man's daughter, It is most true." — " Why it is, and what it is to issue
in, and how it is what it is, and how we came to be introduced into it, and
what is our destiny, are all mysteries." Here the subordinate clauses are
coordinated with each other by and, all being alike subject to the main
assertion. — "If I cannot go with the authority and protection of my gov-
ernment, I prefer not to go at all."3

It hardly needs to be remarked here that these types may
be mixed in many ways ; the fact that any modifying element

1 For the list of relatives, pronominal and adverbial, see Table of Retrospective

nee, p. 247 ; for subordinating conjunctions, p. 265.
- For suspension by conjunctional clauses, see p. 281.
3 Quotations taken, as before, mostly from Earle, op. cit., pp. 81, 83.

320 COMPOSITION.

may assume the clausal form makes this mixture natural tc
any underlying structure. It is not difficult, however, in most
cases, to detect the relations of one type to another, and sc
explain the combination.

II. INTERRELATION OF ELEMENTS.

The ample, though limited, range of logical relations that
may exist between the constituent elements of a sentence all
grows out of the necessary quality of unity. However broad
and diversified the impression made by the sentence, it must
be one impression ; all the lines of assertion, implication,
shading, must focalize into one comprehensive thought. To
this end account must be taken of these internal relations,
and of the means of making them clear to the reader.

Errors of Interrelation. — An organism which is a unity must
just as truly, if it is an organism, be a diversity. Two errors
of interrelation, arising respectively from the disregard of
these necessary qualities, may here be noted.

i. The disregard of unity shows itself in what is called the
heterogeneous sentence. This is a sentence run on carelessly,
admitting all collateral ideas that can be crowded in, until
there are several distinct subjects of thought, and no one of
paramount importance to which all may be counted as sub-
servient. It is much like talking without a pause till one is
out of breath. It is not the same as a long sentence ; it is
rather a long sentence that fails to produce unity of effect.

Examples. — The tendency to let a sentence become heterogeneous
may work in two ways : trying to crowd the interior of the sentence too
full of extraneous matters ; and tacking on an afterthought at the end.

i. Heterogeneous by insignificant details. "The usual acceptation takes
profit and pleasure for two different things ; and not only calls the fol-

THE SENTENCE. 321

lowers or votaries of them by the several names of busy and idle men ; but
distinguishes the faculties of mind that are conversant about them, calling
the operations of the first wisdom, and of the other wit : which is a Saxon
word, used to express what the Spaniards and Italians call ingenio, and the
French esprit, both from the Latin ; though I think wit more particularly
signifies that of poetry, as may occur in remarks on the Runic language."
Here there is material for not less than three sentences, their subjects of
remark being :

Profit and pleasure, how named in men and in the mind.

Derivation and synonymy of the word wit.

Wit ought to be used exclusively as a poetic term.
As soon as we separate these subjects, we see how impossible it is to make
them all parts of the expression of a single thought.

2. Heterogeneous by a tacked-on addition. " He falls so grossly into
the censure of the old poetry, and preference of the new, that I could not
read his strains without indignation ; which no quality among men is so
apt to raise in me as self-sufficiency." Here the relative clause starts off
on a new idea, suggested by the word indignation. The same thing may
occur in narrative details ; e.g. " Tillotson died in this year. He was
exceedingly beloved both by King William and Queen Mary, who nomi-
nated Dr. Tenison, Bishop of Lincoln, to succeed him." l Here the
nomination of Dr. Tenison is entirely apart from the idea of the pre-
vious clause.

2. The disregard of the diversity that may legitimately
characterize the sentence is shown in what may be called the
insignificant sentence. The evil of the heterogeneous sentence
is not cured by making each assertion into a sentence by
itself. Apart from the disagreeable effect of a series of curt
remarks, not all assertions will bear to be made so prominent.
A statement merely explanatory or qualifying ought to be
subordinated to others, and the only way to make this subor-
dination appear is to weave the explanatory clause in with
other things in the same sentence structure ; for as soon as it
is set off by periods it sounds as if coordinate in value. A
small explanatory clause set off by itself is not only insig-

1 The above-quoted sentences are taken (without his italics) from Bain, Compo-
sition and Rhetoric, pp. 135, 1 ■/>. All are from the older writers, who had not
of unity and organism that now prevails in sentences.

322 COMPOSITION.

nificant, it breaks the continuity of the larger thoughts. Its
matter may be worth saying, but not worth challenging inde-
pendent attention; this is a point that the writer's literary
sense must settle.

Examples. — i. Here is recalled the attempt once made by a clergy-
man to give more point and snap to a Scripture verse by periods ; with the
following result : "The pastures are clothed with flocks. The valleys also
are covered over with corn. They shout for joy. They also sing."1 This
last assertion, They also sing, may acquire a snap, but it is really made
insignificant by its separation.

2. How intermediate clauses of comparatively less importance may be
necessary to subserve the continuity from the chief idea of one sentence to
that of another may be seen in the following, in which the intermediate
portion is put in brackets : " Of two old men, the one who is not your
father speaks to you with the more sensible authority ; [for in the paternal
relation the oldest have lively interests and remain still young. Thus I
have known two young men great friends ; each swore by the other's
father ; the father of each swore by the other lad ;] and yet each pair of
parent and child were perpetually by the ears."2 Here the part within
brackets is mostly employed in conducting the thought from general
statement to concrete example. In the following this intermediate char-
acter is neglected, and of the sentences in brackets some are insignificant,
while all break the continuity : " An individual is an encloser. [Time and
space, liberty and necessity, truth and thought, are left at large no longer.
Now, the universe is a close or pound. All things exist in the man tinged
with the manners of his soul. With what quality is in him he infuses all
nature that he can reach ; nor does he tend to lose himself in vastness,
but, at how long a curve soever, all his regards return into his own good
at last. He animates all he can, and he sees only what he animates.] He
encloses the world, as the patriot does his country, as a material basis for
his character, and a theatre for action." 3 Here, as we compare the first
and last sentences, there seems to be a needless detour in thought between,
because the middle sentences are not properly subordinated to the main
current of the idea.

■

1 Psalm lxv. 13.

2 Stevenson, Talk and Talkers, Works, Vol. xiii, p. 284.

3 Emerson, Character, Works, Vol. iii, p. 95.

THE SENTENCE. 323

II.

Logical Relations Consistent with Unity. — In sentences, more
especially of the composita type, where clause stands side by
side with coordinate clause, the question how sentence unity
will bear such manner of accretion assumes chief importance.
The answer depends on the nature of the material.

i. In material of argumentative or expository nature,
wherein thought is linked to thought by likeness or contrast,
or by cause and effect, some phase of such relation must be
present to give the added clause a right within the same sen-
tence. Accordingly, when an added clause gives the conse-
quence or the obverse of the principal; when it explains, or
justifies, or exemplifies, or repeats the idea of the principal ; it
may be set off by a semicolon, but does not necessarily mar
the unity of the sentence.1

Examples. — A number of sentences are given here, with the logical
relation of the semicoloned clauses indicated in the margin : —

" Hence, in speculating on this question I shall take
this as a reasonable assumption first of all, that the
catastrophe of a state is according to its antecedents,
and its destiny according to its nature ; and there- Consequence,
fore, that we cannot venture on any anticipation of
the instruments or the conditions of its death, until
we know something about the principle and the char-
acter of its life." — "To learn from others you must
entertain a respect for them ; no one listens to those Obverse,

whom he contemns." — "He [Herodotus] has written
something better, perhaps, than the best history ; but Obverse,

he has not written a good history ; he is, from the Explanation.
first to the last chapter, an inventor."2 — "The very
greatness of our powers makes this life look pitiful ; Consequence,
the very pitifulness of this life forces on our thcughts

1 " It is this tacit ratiocination which qualifies the Composita to fill so large a

it does in argumentative discourse. It is the vehicle of implied, inexplicit,
and condensed reasoning." — Earle, English Prose, p. 80.

2 Macaulay, Essay on History.

324 COMPOSITION.

to another ; and the prospect of another gives a dig- Consequence,
nity and value to this life which promises it; and thus Consequence,
this life is at once great and little, and we rightly con-
temn it while we exalt its importance." x — " His gen-
tleness is made beautiful by a granite will behind ; Repetition.
\ out of the strong comes forth sweetness.' " — " Agri-
culture is the foundation of manufactures ; the produc- Repetition or ex-
tions of nature are the materials of art."2 — "Now planation.

surely this ought not to be asserted, unless it can be
proved ; we should speak with cautious reverence upon Reason or jus-
such a subject."'2 tification.

In all these sentences we can feel the close logical relation which makes
the coordinated clauses a unity with the principal.

2. In material of descriptive or narrative nature, wherein
details merely touch each other in space or time, the laws of
sentence unity have to be more liberally construed. Much
the same holds in clauses of common bearing grouped under
one implied logical control. In all these cases the unity is
determined not so much by adjusting one clause to another as
by implicitly referring all alike to one comprehensive idea, —
some limitation of time or space or thought. It is the writer's
sense of this dominating idea which regulates the inclusion
of his sentence.

In material of this kind the main problem is to strike a just
mean .between the insignificant and the heterogeneous sen-
tence. Single narrative details, unless emphatic, may well
be too unimportant to stand alone ; they require the support
of company. So it may come to pass that a sentence may be
made up of several distinct facts, and be a kind of smaller
paragraph. Yet beyond a certain point it easily becomes too
loosely strung together ; free as it looks, a pervading unity of
inclusion must keep it from becoming heterogeneous. Of this
delicate balance between too much and not enough a disci-
plined logical sense must be the judge.

1 Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol.

2 Quoted from Bain's Rhetoric, p. 136.

THE SENTENCE. 325

EXAMPLES. — In the following sentences the distinct nodes of detail are
indicated by upright lines.

i. A descriptive sentence. "By night sweet odors, varying with every
hour of the watch, were wafted from the shore to the vessel lying near; |
and the forest trees, brought together by the serpent tracery of myriads of
strange parasitical plants, might well seem to the fancy like some great
design of building, | over which the lofty palms, a forest upon a forest,
appeared to present a new order of architecture. In the background rose
the mist, like incense." 1 Here the fourth detail, not closely enough con-
nected with the others, or perhaps more important to the main current of
thought, is put in a sentence by itself.

2. A narrative sentence. " And now up runs Baptiste, covered with
slime, and prepares to cast his projectiles. The first one fell wide of the
mark ; | the schooner swung round into a long reach of water, | where the
breeze wTas in her favor; | another shout of laughter drowned the maledic-
tions of the muddy man; | the sails filled; | Colossus of Rhodes, smiling
and bowing as hero of the moment, ducked as the main boom swept
round, | and the schooner, leaning slightly to the pleasant influence,
rustled a moment over the bulrushes, and then sped far away down the
rippling bayou." 2

3. Clauses of common bearing. " Before, they took things as they
came, and thought no more of one thing than another. But now every
event has a meaning ; | they have their own estimate of whatever happens
to them; | they are mindful of times and seasons, and compare the present
with the past : | and the world, no longer dull, monotonous, unprofitable,
and hopeless, is a various and complicated drama, writh parts and an object
and an awful moral." 3 Here the relation of the last clause to the rest is
obviously consequence ; the other clauses are closely related as similar
steps in an idea, with one common bearing to give them unity, and all
alike working together to make up the obverse to the short sentence
preceding.

III.

Office of Punctuation.4 — Of the logical sequences necessary to
the unity and proper articulation of the sentence, the marks of

1 Helps, Spanish Conquest in America, quoted in Bain's Rhetoric, p. 137.

2 Cable, Posson Jone', Old Creole Days, p. 174.
8 Newman, Idea of a University, p. 133.

4 For the classification of printer's signs, and for the significance of other marks,
see above, p. 128, footnote.

326 COMPOSITION.

punctuation, — semicolon, colon, comma, and dash, — are the
mechanical signs. As such they have just as definite a mean
ing, and are just as truly a part of composition, as is the choice
or arrangement of words. To leave them to others, printers
or critics, to supply, is to leave to others part of one's thinking;
to confess ignorance of them is to confess that at some
important points the rhetorical art is unmastered.

Of a subject to which in its minute ramifications whole vol-
umes have been not unprofitably devoted, it is possible here
to give only the nucleus principles from which all the applica-
tions proceed. And to this end, braving the risk of small
exceptions and accommodations, we will reduce the significance
of each mark to a single comprehensive principle, from which
its diversities of application may be naturally deduced.

The Semicolon. — This may be called the mark of addition,
more specifically, of the added clause ; the type of sentence,
therefore, of which it is most characteristic is the composita.
In general its range of significance coincides with the logical
relations named in the foregoing section : being used to set
off some phase of explanation, repetition, consequence, or
contrast ; and, in the more loosely related subject-matter,
clauses of detail or common bearing. Let the writer keep in
mind and in all sentence construction observe these logical
dependencies, and the semicolon supplies itself.

Examples. — The examples here adduced, it will be observed, are
examples of the same things exemplified on pages 323 and 325 ; only
here we are looking at the mark, there at the relation. The meaning of
the semicolon is here given in the same terms as the relation there.

" No such voices as those which we heard in our youth
at Oxford are sounding there now. Oxford has more
criticism now, more knowledge, more light ; but such Obverse,

voices as those of our youth it has no longer. The
name of Cardinal Newman is a great name to the
imagination still ; his genius and his style are still Repetition,

things of power. But he is over eighty years old ; Detail.

THE SENTENCE. 327

he is in the Oratory at Birmingham ; he has adopted, Detail,

for the doubts and difficulties which beset men's minds
to-day, a solution which, to speak frankly, is impos-
sible. Forty years ago he was in the very prime of
life ; he was close at hand to us at Oxford ; he was Detail. Detail,
preaching in St. Mary's pulpit every Sunday; he Detail,

seemed about to transform and to renew what was for
us the most national and natural institution in the
world, the Church of England."1 — "To know is one
thing, to do is another ; the two things are altogether Repetition,
distinct. A man knows that he should get up in the
morning, — he lies abed; he knows that he should not Common bearing,
lose his temper, yet he cannot keep it."

Take semicolons as they run, in the wrork of standard writers, and these
simple relations will be traceable in all.

With these modes of relation the semicolon marks, as to dis-
tance, a degree of separateness or remoteness just about such
as exists typically between an added assertion and its prin-
cipal. Two modifications of this notation, however, ought
here to be mentioned. First, sometimes the added assertion,
though in full clausal form, carries with it such a sense of
closeness that only the comma, not so large a pause as the
semicolon, is needed to set it off. Secondly, in order to give
separateness to important details, and thus secure individual
attention to them, the semicolon is sometimes used to set off
portions merely phrasal in form.

Examples. — i. Of composita clauses with comma. Several instances
occur in the sentences lately cited, e.g. " Colossus of Rhodes . . . ducked
as the main boom went round (, = ;) and the schooner . . . sped far away
down the rippling bayou." So also : " A man knows that he should get
up in the morning (, — =r ;) he lies abed ; he knows that he should not lose
his temper (, = ;) yet he cannot keep it." In this latter case the commas
are used partly because of the closeness of relation, partly as a smaller
pause within a semicoloned clause.

2. Of semicolon used to set off phrases. " It is in vain for the Ameri-
can to revile Congress; Congress is a mirror which reflects the national

1 Matthew Arnold, Discourses in America, p. 138.

328 COMPOSITION.

features. On the one hand, its refusal to repudiate national indebtedness
or to pay it in depreciated currency ; its legislation for the protection of
the emancipated negro, and for the deliverance of the Indian from the bar-
barism to which previous legislation had consigned him ; its attempt to
exercise, in the interest of the public, some control over the interstate rail-
ways ; its legislation against the Louisiana Lottery ; its submission of the
Alabama Claims and the Northwest Boundary question to arbitration ; its
provision, albeit tardy and imperfect, for international copyright, — are all
reflections of the better thought and life of the American people. On the
other hand, its bargaining and log-rolling in tariff legislation ; its cheap and
noisy war-talk ; its reluctant surrender of the spoils system ; its often absurd
appropriations for public improvements designed and pressed through for
personal ends ; its passionate haste when deliberation is demanded, and its
sometimes long delays when prompt action is indispensable to public wel-
fare,— are all symptoms of dangerous elements in national life."1

The Comma. — Just as the semicolon is the mark of the
added clause, with its clear though appreciably remote logical
relation, the comma is the mark of the closer dependent clause
(in sentences of the evoluta type), and of the phrase or the
word that does duty as a phrase. It is still a mark of sepa-
ration, but not enough, ordinarily, to break into the gram-
matical continuity of the passage.

To enumerate all its varieties of usage would result in more
confusion than clearness. In the interests of simplicity it
will be better here to define a few cardinal applications and
depend on the well-mastered knowledge of these to impart a
sense for the minutiae.

Its main lines of usage may be reduced to three ; of each
of which, by way of making its rationale more recognizable, a
few specifications are here given. The comma is employed
to mark : —

i. Some form of disjunction, — as when words or phrases,
singly or in pairs, are set over against each other ; when a
long or involved subject is finished, ready for its verb ; when

1 Abbott, Christianity and Social Problems, p. 53.

THE SENTENCE. 329

a relative clause adds a new fact to its antecedent clause 1 ;
when a constituent clause is of subordinate, not coordinate,
significance.

Examples. — i. Of disjoined words and phrases. " Sink or swim, live
or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart to this vote."2 —
" People are perpetually squabbling about what will be best to do, or
easiest to do, or adviseablest to do, or profitablest to do ; but they never,
so far as I hear them talk, ever (sic) ask what it is just to do."3

2. Of the comma as mark of finished subject. " Life in modern London
even, in the heavy glow of summer, is stuff sufficient for the fresh imagina-
tion of a youth to build its 'palace of art' of; and the very sense and
enjoyment of an experience in which all is new, are but enhanced, like that
glow of summer itself, by the thought of its brevity."4 Here the comma
after summer has a double office, one with reference to the succeeding
verb, the other with reference to the prepositional phrase preceding ; the
comma after new is merely the mark of the finished subject.

3. Of an additive relative clause. " Now this doctrine will become
clearer by considering another use of words, which does relate to objective
truth, or to things."5

4. Of a subordinate clause. At the beginning : " And, while the many
use language as they find it, the man of genius uses it indeed, but subjects
it withal to his own purposes, and moulds it according to his own peculiari-
ties."1— In the middle: "Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead,
being alone."2 — At the end: " Let us then put aside the scientific use of
words, when we are to speak of language and literature." 6

2. Some form of intercalation, — as when a parenthetical
phrase or clause is inserted within the grammatical structure
of a clause or sentence ; when a word or phrase is used in
apposition to something ; when a particle modifying the whole
assertion, such as however, indeed, too, then, is slipped into the
construction.

1 See above, p. 237, note.

2 Webster, Adams and Jefferson, Great Speeches, p. 168.
8 Rusk in, Crown of Wild Olive, p. 52.

4 Pater, Marius the Epicurean, p. 197.

fi Newman, Idea of a University, pp. 274-276.

6 James ii. 17.

330 COMPOSITION.

Examples. — i. Of an intercalary phrase. " We have, peculiar to the
prose writer, the task of keeping his phrases large, rhythmical, and pleasing
to the ear, without ever allowing them to fall into the strictly metrical."1

2. Of apposition. " Pope Gregory, that great religious poet, requested
by certain eminent persons to send them some of those relics he sought for
so devoutly in all the lurking-places of old Rome, took up, it is said, a
portion of common earth, and delivered it to the messengers."2 This sen-
tence exemplifies also the other distinctions here made.

3. Of an intercalary particle. " Here, then, is your chief duty, you
workmen and tradesmen, — to be true to yourselves and to us who
would help you." 3

3. Some form of ellipsis, — as for instance : to supply the
place of a conjunction that in a list of details has been
omitted ; to supply the place of a verb that in repeated or
parallel ideas is omitted.

Examples. — 1. Of ellipsis of conjunction. "The colleges, the clergy,
A the lawyers, were against me." — " The spirit of the Almighty is within,
around, y\ above us."

2. Of ellipsis of verb. " A wise man seeks to shine in himself ; a fool,
A in others." — " Price of admission, ^ 50 cents."

The Colon. — The colon has two distinct offices, one typical,
the other occasional, and as it were a makeshift.

1. Typically, the colon may be called the mark of expect-
ancy. It is the mark that is used to introduce, whether in
clausal or phrasal form, some detail or item that the language
preceding has made ready for. This applies to specifications
or enumerations ; to citations formally introduced ; and, in
slightly modified application, to some kind of afterthought.

2. As employed occasionally, the colon functions as a
pause intermediate between the semicolon and the period.
If we may judge from the derivation of the word, this seems
to have been its original usage ; colon meaning member or

1 Stevenson, On Style in Literature, Works, Vol. xxii, p. 264.

2 Pater, Appreciations, p. 162.

8 Ruskin, Crown of Wild Olive, p. 61.

THE SENTENCE. 331

clause ; semicolon, half a clause. Its use thus is to separate
sentence divisions already articulated by semicolons.

Examples. — i. As the mark of expectancy. To specify: "It leaves
to the people individual enterprise ; it contemplates and intends variations
of wealth and condition ; but it maintains this fundamental principle : That
every man is a trustee, and every man must account for the administration
of his trust."1 — "The capital leading questions on which you must this
day decide are these two : First, whether you ought to concede ; and sec-
ondly, what your concession ought to be."2 — To introduce a quotation or
citation : " There is a characteristic saying of Dr. Johnson : ' Patriotism is
the last refuge of a scoundrel.'" — To mark an afterthought: " You sup-
posed, probably, that your office was to defend the works of peace, but
certainly not to found them : nay, the common course of war, you may
have thought, was only to destroy them."3

2. As offset to the semicolon. "But Gray holds his high rank as a
poet, not merely by the beauty and grace of passages in his poems ; not
merely by a diction generally pure in an age of impure diction : he holds it,
above all, by the power and skill with which the evolution of his poems is
conducted." 4

The Dash. — This, a very useful mark in its place, is so
much abused by unskilful writers that the general sense of
its true function is a good deal obscured. All the more need,
therefore, to get, if possible, at its central meaning.

i. As related to sentence organism, the dash may be called
the mark of abruptness ; that is, the matter it introduces is
unexpected and unprepared for. It is in this abruptness,
principally, that it differs from the colon. Otherwise it deals
with much the same subject-matter, being used mainly to slip
in something explanatory or parenthetical,5 as it were, between
the lines. Also, by its note of unexpectedness it may mark
a sudden change or suspension of the construction, or an
epigrammatic turn in the spirit of the assertion.

1 Abbott, Christianity and Social Problems, p. 92.

2 Burke, Speech on Conciliation with America.
8 Ruskin, Crown of Wild Olive, p. 117.

4 Matthew Arnold, Discourses in America, p. 156.

6 For the parenthetical use of the dash and the double dash, and their effect in
diction, see above, p. 130.

332 composition:

2. A secondary use of the dash may here be mentioned,
namely, its employment with other marks of punctuation.
As thus added to other marks — and it may be found with
commas, semicolons, colons, and even periods — it augments
their effect, while at the same time it retains more or less of
its own suggestion of abruptness.

Examples. — i. Of the dash as a mark of abruptness, a. Slipped-in
explanation. "That the end of life is not action but contemplation —
being as distinct from doing — a certain disposition of the mind: is, in
some shape or other, the principle of all the higher morality."1 — "But
taking the Frenchman who is commonly in view — the usual type of
speaking, doing, vocal, visible Frenchman — we may say, and he will
probably be not at all displeased at our saying, that the German in him
has nearly died out, and the Gallo-Latin has quite got the upper hand."2

b. Change or suspension of construction. " Was there ever a bolder
captain of a more valiant band? Was there ever — But I scorn to boast."

Cassius. " Yet I fear him :

For in the ingrafted love he bears to Caesar —
•Brutus. Alas ! good Cassius, do not think of him." 8

" Richter says, in the Island of Sumatra there is a kind of ' Light-chafers,'
large Fire-flies, which people stick upon spits, and illuminate the ways with
at night. Persons of condition can thus travel with a pleasant radiance,
which they much admire. Great honor to the Fire-flies ! But — ! — " 4

c. Epigrammatic turn. " You have given the command to a person of
illustrious birth, of ancient family, of innumerable statues, but — of no
experience."

2. Of the dash with other marks, a. With comma. " We experience,
as we go on learning and knowing, — the vast majority of us experience, —
the need of relating what we have learnt and known to the sense which we
have in us for conduct, to the sense which we have in us for beauty."5
b. With semicolon. " This description implies the assemblage of strangers
from all parts in one spot ; — from all parts ; else, how will you find profes-
sors and students for every department of knowledge? and in one spot;

1 Pater, Appreciations, p. 6i.

2 Arnold, Discourses in America, p. 49.

8 Shakespeare, Julius Ccesar, Act ii, Scene 1, 184.
4 Carlyle, Hero Worship, Lecture V, end.
6 Arnold, Discourses in America, p. 105.

THE SENTENCE. 333

else, how can there be any school at all?"1 c. With colon. "This will
be the end of your refusing the loving compulsion of Almighty God: —
slavery to this world, and to the god of this world."2 What makes this
last addition unexpected, is that it resumes in brief form what has been
fully given before, — the this at the beginning of the sentence being pri-
marily retrospective.

Present General Status of Punctuation. — By way of premise
it should be borne in mind that, well-furnished as it is, the
existing scale of punctuation is by no means a complete rep-
resentation of the pauses actually made in speaking or read-
ing aloud. In every sentence there are rhetorical pauses that
go unmarked and need no marking ; they make themselves.
And the more lucid and well organized the sentence, the more
safely these pauses may be left to the reader. In a well-
written passage the syntax dictates the place of the stops,
and is not dependent on them. When a pause has to be
lugged in to bolster up the construction, and above all when
without the pause it would be left ambiguous or uncertain,
the sentence itself is wrong, — it needs amendment. Do not
let the interpretation of an assertion depend upon a punctua-
tion mark.

The modern tendency is to reduce punctuation : cutting
down semicoloned relations, where possible, to the comma,
and leaving many of the comma pauses to the unmarked
rhetorical pause. This is a good sign ; because if to some
extent it betokens carelessness of notation, to a broader
extent it coexists with a better, more accurately articulated
sentence structure. On the whole, it is because the modern
sentence is so much improved that it is, and may be, left
more safely to punctuate itself.

Illustrative Note. — Professor Earle {English Prose, p. 107), in
speaking of this modern reduction of the comma, illustrates the fuller

1 Newman, Historical Sketches, Vol. iii, p. 6.

2 lb., Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. iv, p. 65.

334 • COMPOSITION.

punctuation of the older prose by the following passage from Hume's His-
tory of England 'in an edition of the year 1773 : —

" The conspirators, hearing of Waltheof's departure, immediately con-
cluded their design to be betrayed ; and they flew to arms, before their
schemes were ripe for execution, and before the arrival of the Danes, in
whose aid they placed their chief confidence. The earl of Hereford was
checked by Walter de Lacy, a great baron in those parts, who, supported
by the bishop of Worcester and the abbot of Evesham, raised some forces,
and prevented the earl from passing the Severne, or advancing into the
heart of the kingdom. The earl of Norfolk was defeated at Fagadun,
near Cambridge, by Odo, the regent, assisted by Richard de Bienfaite, and
William de Warrenne, the two justiciaries."

With this general reduction of punctuation the field is
left clearer for special effects. Accordingly we find that in
modern writing punctuation is a much more flexible thing,
and more open to individualities of style, than was formerly
the case. It may for greater stress be augmented, — that is,
pushed up from rhetorical pause to comma, from comma to
semicolon ; it may also be attenuated for greater rapidity.
It is this skilful employment of punctuation as a flexible,
living, artistic thing which makes it so truly a cardinal
factor in the organism of the sentence.

Note. — This matter has already been presented in connection with
Diction, p. 131, and in connection with Amplitude, p. 289. The exag-
gerated punctuation of the following sentences, for example, is not the old
lumbering articulation of a century ago; it evinces the sense of greater
importance and stress. " There would be real wild and domestic creatures,
all of rare species; and a real slaughter."1 — "Chance: or Providence!
Chance : or Wisdom, one with nature and man, reaching from end to end,
through all time and all existence, orderly disposing all things, according
to fixed periods, as he describes it, in terms very like certain well-known
words of the book of Wisdom : — those are the ' fenced opposites ' of the
speculative dilemma."2

1 Pater, Marius the Epicurean, p. 178.

2 lb., p. 220.

THE SENTENCE. 335

III. MASSING OF ELEMENTS FOR FORCE.

To determine the proper interrelation of sentence-elements
we have had to approach the sentence analytically. Here,
on the contrary, we enter upon a synthetic process, — the
process of making the assertion act together as a whole, pre-
cipitating its force, as it were, upon the point desired and
with the exact stress desired. Thought moves thus in organ-
ized masses, both in attaining its own rounded fulness and
in adjusting itself to other utterances.

Distribution of Emphasis. — In speech the points of empha-
sis are indicated by stress or intonation of the voice. The
lack of this resource in writing is partially made up by the
occasional use of italics, which, however, goes only a little
way.1 Underlying all this, too, it is to be remembered that
emphasis is a natural, not a manufactured thing ; these exter-
nal helps from voice and type do not create but only recog-
nize and record it. The same thing is done more efficiently
because more organically through the masterful arrangement
of sentence-elements, an artistic procedure that justifies itself
by being most effective when least realized. This, then, is
the ideal : seek so to place words that they will emphasize
themselves ; and do not make the interpretation of a sentence
depend on the manner in which it is read.

In order to get at the distribution of emphasis inside of the
sentence or clause, we have to recognize by a disciplined tact
the places where emphasis is most naturally concentrated,
and as well also the intermediate or outlying tracts that have
no special distinction.2

1 For the use of italics for stress, see above, pp. 128, 129.

- For collocation in phraseology, and its relation to emphasis, see above, pp. 243,
244 ; for inversion and its objects, p. 277. — " As, in an army on the march, the fight-

336 COMPOSITION.

Outset and Culmination. — The two great foci of emphasis,
the beginning and the end, are here defined by the names
outset and culmination, to indicate not only the fact but the
kind of stress that belongs to these points respectively ; a dis-
tinction determined by the sense of the fact that a sentence
exists for the purpose of adding a new thought to the stock
already presumably in the reader's possession.

To the beginning belongs the stress due to the outset of
attention, the natural initiation of the thought : namely,
what is nearest in thought to the reader's inquiry, or to the
core-idea of the previous sentence ; and what is the best pre-
liminary to the forward step which it is the business of the
present sentence to take. Typically, this is the subject, as
being the basis of all that is said, and necessary to it. But
also such may be the status of the assertion that some accom-
paniment of time, place, circumstance, or condition may be
its necessary preliminary ; in which case the initial stress is
claimed by the adverbial element. The exceptional placing
of the predicate first gives a somewhat violent emphasis, the
emphasis of abruptness, to that element.

To the end belongs the stress due to the culmination and
goal of the assertion, what the sentence most truly exists to
express. Being therefore the most important stress-point of
all, it suffers correspondingly if its distinction is not a matter
of foresight, or if it is given over to something insignificant.
This culmination point is the natural place for the predicate,
in the large sense, because ordinarily it is to predicate or
assert something that the sentence exists. If, however, as is
sometimes the case, the subject is put at this point, it is
because the subject is the new element, the predicate being
perhaps a repeat or already well in mind. In the same way,

ing columns are placed front and rear, and the baggage in the centre, so the emphatic
parts of a sentence should be found either in the beginning or in the end, subordinate
and matter-of-course expressions in the middle." — Bain, English Composition and
Rhetoric, p. 135.

THE SENTENCE.

337

if a modifying element — of time, place, circumstance, or con-
dition — is sent to the end, it is because this is the real goal
of interest, and claims therefore the chief stress.

The question how to give special distinction to some par-
ticular word resolves itself, for the most part, into the question
how to make it occupy one of these positions, the beginning
or the end. And the question which of these it shall occupy
is answered by determining whether it is more truly an initial
idea, from which some consequence or predication flows, or a
goal idea, toward which the course of the sentence is to be
steered. Grammatical constructions shape themselves to these
considerations, which the writer must decide for himself.

Examples. — The various grammatical means of manipulating sentence
order have been so fully set forth under Collocation (p. 240), Prospective
Reference (p. 254), Inversion (p. 276), and Suspension (p. 279), that further
examples of these processes are superfluous here. A few examples of
faulty and improved arrangement placed side by side will serve to bring
out the significance of these points of outset and culmination.

1. The point of outset.

" The State was made, under the
pretense of serving it, in reality, the
prize of their contention, to each of
those opposite parties, who professed
in specious terms, the one a prefer-
ence for modern Aristocracy, the
other a desire of admitting people at
large to an equality of civil privileges."

" Each of those opposite parties,
professing in specious terms, the one
a preference for modern Aristoc-
racy, the other a desire of admitting
people at large to an equality of civil
privileges, made the State, under the
pretense of serving it, in reality the
prize of their contention."

This amendment gives the point of outset to the parties, which term
before was buried in the sentence ; it gives at the same time the point of
culmination to " contention," which is the evident goal of the sentence.

" No great painters trouble them-
selves about perspective, and very
few of them know its loss ; they try
ything by the eye, and naturally
enough disdain in the easy parts of
their work rales which cannot help
them in difficult cases."

" About perspective no great paint-
ers trouble themselves, and very few
of them know its loss ; they try
everything by the eye, and naturally
enough disdain in the easy parts of
their work rules which cannot help
them in difficult cases."

338

COMPOSITION.

As is brought out by the amendment, the subject of remark is no

it is therefore put in the forefront

" great painters " but " perspective ";
and all the rest flows from it.

" The Arabian peninsula may be
conceived as a triangle of spacious but
irregular dimensions in the vacant
space between Persia, Syria, Egypt,
and Ethiopia."

" In the vacant space betweer
Persia, Syria, Egypt, and Ethiopia
the Arabian peninsula may be con
ceived as a triangle of spacious bui
irregular dimensions."

Here the question is of the preliminary needed for the writer's assertion
In the first case "the Arabian peninsula," being first, is the preliminary tc
the rest ; in the second case the place-element, being first, gives the boundary
'before the main assertion is made.

2. The point of culmination.

" I can hinder sorrow from be-
coming despair and madness ; and
laughter is one of the very privileges
of reason, being confined to the hu-
man species."

" I can hinder sorrow from be-
coming despair and madness ; and
one of the very privileges of reason,
confined as it is to the human spe-
cies, is laughter."

Here the amendment makes " laughter," as the word best explaining
the assertion of the first clause, the goal of the sentence. If, however, the
word were already familiar from the context preceding, its place at the
outset of its clause would be justified.

" Of all the amusements which can
possibly be imagined for a hard-work-
ing man, after his daily toil, there is
nothing like reading an entertaining
book, supposing him to have a taste
for it, and supposing him to have
the book to read."

" Of all the amusements which
can possibly be imagined for a hard-
working man, after his daily toil, —
supposing him to have the taste and
the means of gratifying it, — there
is nothing like reading an entertain-
ing book."

Here, in order to get the words " an entertaining book " at its proper
place, the end, a recast of the conditional clauses is needed so as not to
anticipate the wording; at the same time, as indicated by the dashes, these
clauses inside the sentence have to be treated as parenthetical matter.

" In all ages, and in all countries,
man, through the disposition he in-

herits from our first parents, is more herits from our first parents, is less

desirous of a quiet and approving, desirous of a vigilant and tender con-

than of a vigilant and tender con- science than of a conscience quiet

science." and approving."

THE SENTENCE. 339

Here the writer has clumsily tried to stress what he regarded important
by italics ; by reversing the phrases, giving the culmination point to the
more important, and by the reversed order of noun and adjectives in the
last, all needed stress is secured.

" If a doctrine be not commu-
nicated, of what consequence are all
the qualities of it ? and if it be not
understood it is not communicated."

" Of what consequence are all the
qualities of a doctrine if it be not
communicated ? and communicated
it is not, if it be not understood."

This illustrates the utility of placing a conditional clause at the culmi-
nation point when the condition, as is evidently the case here, is the real
significance of the whole assertion.

Interior and Outlying Tracts. — Just as the writer must take
care of the parts toward which, so he must bear instinctively
in mind the parts away from which, the emphasis flows.
These are the ancillary elements ; clauses and phrases that
round out the sense by explanation, detail, or apposition. In
their nature they are more or less parenthetical ; and each
one, starting from its connective, relative, or prepositional
beginning, is to be viewed and treated as stretching out from
its capital and becoming progressively an outlying tract.

These parts, then, require relatively a lower key of empha-
sis ; they should reach their own points directly and unmodi-
fiedly ; they should take a greater lightness and rapidity of
style, with its resources of condensation and elision.1 The
punctuation, as compared with that of the emphatic portions,
is as much as may be attenuated ; semicolon relations reduced
to commas, commas to the unmarked rhetorical pause.2 The
controlling effort is to dispatch all such side elements with as
little waiting or dragging as possible.

EXAMPLE. — A principle so comprehensive cannot well be exemplified
in limited space. A single sentence, from Ruskin, who introduces much
ancillary material, will show something of his treatment. " For, whether
in one or other form, — whether the faithfulness of men whose path is

1 For Condensation for Rapidity, see above, pp. 299-302.

2 For attenuated punctuation, with example, see above, p. 131, 3.

340 COMPOSITION.

chosen and portion fixed, in the following and receiving of that path am
portion, as in the Thermopylae camp ; or the happier faithfulness of childrei
in the good giving of their Father, and of subjects in the conduct of thei
King, as in the ' Stand still and see the salvation of God ' of the Red Se;
shore, — ■ there is rest and peacefulness, the ' standing still,' in both ; th
quietness of action determined, of spirit unalarmed, of expectation unim
patient : beautiful, even when based only, as of old, on the self-commanc
and self-possession, the persistent dignity or the uncalculating love, of tht
creature ; but more beautiful yet when the rest is one of humility insteac
of pride, and the trust no more in the resolution we have taken, but in the
Hand we hold." l

Here we may thus map out the main course of the sentence : (i) a long
outset giving circumstances : " whether in one or other form " (specified)
(2) the assertion : " there is rest and peacefulness ... in both ; the quiet
ness," etc. ; (3) a long culminating description : "beautiful, even when, etc
. . . but more beautiful yet when," etc. In the clauses beginning " whether '
there are such evidences of condensation as " whose path is chosen anc
portion fixed," " in the Thermopylae camp," " in the good giving of thei]
Father," — all pointed and light moving. In the later clauses beginning
with "when," the same pointedness; also in the outlying prepositional
phrase, "on the self-command," etc., a condensation by split particle; anc
in the final phrases, "in the resolution," etc., an omission of relatives.

II.

Dynamic Stress. — Every sentence and every clause has its
dynamic point, its centre of action, from which its power and
significance are to be reckoned ; and this must be kept in
mind by the writer, in order to determine the proper relation
of parts to each other, and of the whole sentence to other
sentences in a paragraph. Some claims of this dynamic
stress may here be noted.

The Stress-Point as a Cue. — An idea from which a succeed-
ing clause or sentence is to take its cue should be made
prominent by position or wording, that is, should have the
dynamic stress. Equally important it is, on the other side,
to mass the succeeding sentence according to the cue recog-

1 This sentence has already been in part quoted, under Rapidity, p. 301, above.

THE SENTENCE.

341

nized in its predecessor ; on the principle of closing with
already suggested thought as an outset, and pushing on from
this to a new assertion.

Examples. — Here may be placed side by side faulty and amended
sentences showing the value of recognizing the dynamic stress.

i. Making the cue point prominent.

" It was remarkable that although
he [Barnaby Rudge] had that dim
sense of the past, he sought out
Hugh's dog, and took him under his
care ; and that he never could be
tempted into London." 1

" It was remarkable that although
his sense of the past was so dim, he
sought out Hugh's dog, and took
him under his care; and that he
never could be tempted into Lon-
don."

Here the assertion of the main sentence depends not on the fact that
Barnaby had the sense, but that the sense was so dim ; hence the word
dim should have the stress, — and placing it at the end secures this.

" I occupied a tug from which I
could see the effect of the battle
on both sides, within range of the
enemy's guns ; but a small tug, with-
out armament, was not calculated to
attract the fire of batteries while they
were being assailed themselves." 2

" A tug, which I occupied, and
from which I could see the effect
of the battle on both sides,, was
within range of the enemy's guns ;
but a small tug, without armament,
was not calculated to attract the fire
of batteries while they were being
assailed themselves." J

Here the cue-point of the first part is, not that he occupied a tug but
that it was within range ; this, therefore, ought to have the main assertion.

2. Taking advantage of the cue.

"At first sight one would fancy that there never was a book more
popular, or that formed more exclusively the mental centre of modern
scholars, Orientalists, theologians, or jurists. What is the real truth ?

Paradoxical as it may seem, there
never was a book at once more uni-
versally neglected and more univer-
sally talked of."3

Paradoxical as it may seem, there
never was a book at once more uni-
versally talked of and more univer-
sally neglected."

1 Dickens, Barnaby Rudge, Chapter the Last.

2 Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Vol. i, p. 476.

3 DSUT8CH, The Talmud, Literary Remains of Emanuel Deutsch, p. 3.

342 COMPOSITION.

Here, by the proposed change, the word " talked of " uses the cue fur-
nished by the preceding sentence, the word " neglected," culminating the
sentence, points the new assertion that the sentence exists to make.

" Then, too, in spite of all that is said about the absorbing and brutal-
izing influence of our passionate material progress, it seems to me indis-
putable that this progress is likely, though not certain, to lead in the end
to an apparition of intellectual life; and that man, after he has made him-
self perfectly comfortable and has now to determine what to do with him-
self next, may begin to remember that he has a mind, and that the mind
may be made the source of great pleasure.

I grant it is mainly the privilege of
faith, at present, to discern this end
to our railways, our business, and
our fortune-making;

I grant that, at present, to discern
this end to our railways, our busi-
ness, and our fortune-making, is
mainly the privilege of faith ;

but we shall see if, here, as elsewhere, faith is not in the end the true
prophet." l

Here the proposed change of order both makes the word "faith" use
the cue of the preceding, and distinguishes it as itself the cue, in turn, for
the assertion that follows.

Claims of Variety. — It is principally through the good
management of the dynamic stress that the variety of phrase
and movement so essential to the interest of the reader is
maintained.2

i. When, in clauses or sentences of like construction, an
element has once had a certain stress, there is no need of
giving it the same stress again, except in the special case
where it is desirable to emphasize by iteration.3 It is better
to put the repeated idea in a subordinate relation, or change
its relative order, so as to reserve the stress for a new aspect
of the thought.

Example. — This is especially notable in a succession of clauses begin-
ning with that. The following will illustrate this : —

1 Matthew Arnold, Essays in Criticism, First Series, p. 17.

2 For the claim of variety in vocabulary, see above, p. 48.
8 For the use of iteration as a form of repetition, see above, p. 303.

THE SENTENCE.

343

" That Dryden was a great poet
is undeniable ; that he desecrated
his powers and burned them, like
the incense of Israel, in unhallowed
shrines, is no less certain." 1

" That some facts were stated in-
accurately, I do not doubt ; that
many opinions were crude, I am
quite sure; that I had failed to
understand much which I attempted
to explain, is possible." 2

" That Dryden was a great poet is
undeniable ; but it is no less certain
that he desecrated his powers and
burned them, like the incense of
Israel, in unhallowed shrines."

" That some facts were stated in-
accurately, I do not doubt ; that
many opinions were crude, I am
quite sure ; and it is quite possible
that I had failed to understand much
which I attempted to explain."

Here the proposed amendments not only secure variety of stress and
movement, but produce an effect of climax.

2. A natural result of the observance of the cue and the
adjustment of succeeding stress to it, is that in a series of
sentences the stress is continually varied, coming in the be-
ginning of some sentences and at the end of others. This is
of course a thing for watchfulness and artistic management ;
regard being had always for the two considerations : variation
of rhythm, and grouping of related ideas together.

Examples. — To note how this variation of stress works in a passage
of several sentences, compare the following extract with its respectfully
suggested emendation : —

" The great ideas that lie in the
philosophic systems of the world
have more vitality and utility for
the preacher than for the thinker
who is aiming at the production of
a scheme that shall render obsolete
the whole mass of preceding specula-
tion. These systems of thought are
mines which only the man in sympa-
thetic ethical contact with mankind
can operate to advantage. The learn-
ing of the historian of philosophy he

" The great ideas that lie in the
philosophic systems of the world
have less vitality and utility for the
thinker, who is aiming at the produc-
tion of a scheme that shall render
obsolete the whole mass of preceding
speculation, than for the preacher
[, who is putting thought into the
production of character]. It is only
the man in sympathetic ethical con-
tact with mankind who can operate
these mines of systematic thought to

1 Farrar, With the Poets.

2 TROLLOPS, Autobiography.

344

COMPOSITION.

cannot possess, but the great thoughts
of the past he may master and make
his own as few can. The same may
be said of literature. The niceties of
the study and the erudition of the
literary commentator he may not
have, but the spiritual possession of
the vision and the passion of the
world's great artists he may assuredly
have. No form of human service is
better fitted than the Christian min-
istry to reveal the vitality that is the
source of all great literature."

advantage. The learning of the his-
torian of philosophy he cannot pos-
sess, but he may master and make his
own, as few can, the great thoughts
of the past. The same may be said
of literature. The niceties of the
study and the erudition of the liter-
ary commentator he may not have,
but he may assuredly have the spirit-
ual possession of the vision and the
passion of the world's great artists.
No form of human service is better
fitted than the Christian ministry to
reveal the vitality that is the source
of all great literature."

3. The deadly snare of the jaded or perfunctory writer, —
and, it may be added, of that much-vaunted being the spon-
taneous writer — is, monotony of sentence structure, a wooden
movement, with the same rise and fall, the same type of sen-
tence, the same relative placement of stress, dominating the
whole work. This rises simply from the relaxation of vigi-
lance in calculating the relation of part to part ; in other
words, from neglecting to follow and adjust to each other
the mass and movement of sentences.

Example. — In the following, which is a perfunctory editorial notice, it
will be seen that the sentences, with the sole exception of the second, anc
this more apparent than real, are all constructed in precisely the same way,
— each consisting merely of two assertions connected by and: —

"The death of Senator Anthony has been long expected, and it releases
him from a suffering which was beyond remedy. He was a public man of
long and honorable service, who filled every station to which he was called
with dignity and grace. As the editor of The Providence Journal, and Gov-
ernor and Senator, he was the most important political figure in the State,
and in his death Rhode Island loses the most successful politician in her
history.

" In other years Senator Anthony's crisp and pungent paragraphs in tl
Journal were very notable and influential, and his paper was one of the hi
dozen leading journals in New England. It was by paragraphs rather tl

THE SENTENCE. 345

by elaborate editorial articles that he preferred to affect opinion, and in the
Senate it was by his occasional brief speeches, which were often singularly
felicitous, and not by participation in debate or by prolonged orations, that
he took part in the proceedings.

" He was a devoted party man, and his political experience and judgment
made him a wise counsellor. At home he had the reputation of a shrewd
manager, and his party will not easily find so well-trained a leader. Yet
for a long time there have been complaints that his rule was too absolute,
and that good politics required more freedom and independence than his
sway permitted. Senator Anthony's social sympathies and his literary
tastes made him a very pleasant companion, and his conversation was full
of interesting political reminiscence. He had become the Father of the
Senate, and no Senator would be more sincerely mourned by his associates
than this courteous gentleman and devoted and faithful legislator."

IV. THE SENTENCE IN DICTION.

What we have here to consider will be apparent from the
description of diction given on p. 107, above. Going back
a little from the question of sentence organism, we are to note
what effect sentences of various lengths or types have upon
the general coloring and movement of the style; what the
texture of a whole passage derives from the prevailing char
acter of the sentences that make it up.

As to Length. — The question whether the sentences of a
passage shall be long or short is by no means an idle one ;
it implies something regarding their kind of subject-matter,
something also regarding their adaptedness to the taste or
capacity of the reader. Accordingly we have to note of each
class, what it is good for, and what ill effects result from
using it injudiciously or in too great predominance.

The Short Sentence. — The short sentence, with its single
assertion, nucleates in the meaning or weight of some single
word. This suggests what it is especially good for : subject-

346 COMPOSITION.

matter whose business it is to make some important point
or discrimination, or to lay down some statement on which
weighty consequences depend. The fundamental propositions
of a course of thought, and passages that sum up or impress,
are generally expressed in short, vigorous sentences.

On the other hand, while good for occasional emphasis and
point, the short sentence is lacking in rhythm and sustained
power ; it has no roll, no momentum. It makes its way as
by a sharp stroke, not by a graduated progress. Further, an
extended succession of short sentences, even with an impor-
tant issue to support it, becomes a kind of clatter, curt and
abrupt ; while if the subject-matter is not weighty it misses
its end of smartness and becomes merely flippant. It is in
the use of short sentences especially that the evil of the insig-
nificant sentence is to be guarded against.1

Example. — The following passage will at once illustrate the use and
suggest the limitation of the short sentence : " Sir, this alarming discontent
is not the growTth of a day or of a year. If there be any symptoms by which
it is possible to distinguish the chronic diseases of the body politic from its
passing inflammations, all those symptoms exist in the present case. The
taint has been gradually becoming more extensive and more malignant,
through the whole life-time of two generations. We have tried anodynes.
We have tried cruel operations. What are we to try now ? Who flatters
himself that he can turn this feeling back ? . . . We have had laws. We
have had blood. New treasons have been created. The Press has been
shackled. The Habeas Corpus Act has been suspended. Public meetings
have been prohibited. The event has proved that these expedients were
mere palliatives. You are at the end of your palliatives. The evil remains.
It is more formidable than ever. What is to be done ? " 2

1 For the insignificant sentence, see earlier in this chapter, p. 321. — Professor
Earle, commenting on a quoted passage, thus remarks on short sentences: " For a
certain space this may do well enough, but as it goes on in the same continued stac-
cato, the reader is overtaken with a feeling of sameness. The sense may be good, each
sentence may be neat and smart, and yet the whole may be wearisome. To give
pleasure there must be symmetry, and to this end there must be the relation of parts
and members, and these must be at once diverse in size and harmonious in propor-
tion. The short-sentence fallacy is the repetition in another guise of the short-word
fallacy." — Earle, English Prose, p. 207.

2 Macaulay, On Parliamentary Reform, First Speech.

THE SENTENCE. 347

The Long Sentence. — The advantage of the long sentence is
the room it affords, wherein to amplify the sense, by con-
siderations ancillary to the main idea. This suggests the
kind of subject-matter to which the long sentence is espe-
cially adapted : details, expansions, colorings, shadings of a
thought already in the reader's mind, either as expressed
briefly at the outset — making the sentence a kind of para-
graph, ■ — or as carrying out the suggestion of a previous
short sentence. On account of its freer range, also, it is the
kind of sentence in which can be incorporated qualities of
rhythm, climax, cadence, massiveness, impressiveness.

On the other hand, the long sentence imposes on the reader
a burden of interpretation ; he must, to follow it properly,
keep aware of its main and its subsidiary lines, and be at
work adjusting the thought to simpler conceptions. Of this
the writer who ventures on long sentences must take account,
and make the structure plain and strongly marked to coun-
teract the difficulty of its length. An extended succession of
long sentences, especially of the evoluta type, is almost sure to
be lumbering, heavy, forbidding. The composita, thus care-
lessly extended, is apt to be rambling and heterogeneous.1

Example. — The following illustrates the typical use to which the long
sentence may be put. The second sentence gives simply the details neces-
sary to fill out and color the idea expressed in the first : " And, while the
many use language as they find it, the man of genius uses it indeed, but
subjects it withal to his own purposes, and moulds it according to his own
peculiarities. The throng and succession of ideas, thoughts, feelings,
imaginations, aspirations, which pass within him, the abstractions, the
juxtapositions, the comparisons, the discriminations, the conceptions,
which are so original in him, his views of external things, his judgments
upon life, manners, and history, the exercises of his wit, of his humor, of
his depth, of his sagacity, all these innumerable and incessant creations, the
very pulsation and throbbing of his intellect, does he image forth, to all
does he give utterance, in a corresponding language, which is as multiform
as this inward mental action itself and analogous to it, the faithful expres-
1 For the heterogeneous sentence, see above, p. 320.

348 COMPOSITION.

sion of his intense personality, attending on his own inward world of thought
as its very shadow : so that we might as well say that one man's shadow is
another's as that the style of a really gifted mind can belong to any but
himself." 1

Alternation of Kinds. — Not only do proper effects in diction
demand that long and short sentences alternate with and
relieve each other ; the wise observance of their typical kinds
of subject-matter, too, of compendious statement offset by
detail, leads naturally to the same end. It is a requisite both
of style and of thought.

i. A combination rather than alternation of kinds calls
first for mention, useful as it is to obviate certain evils both
of the short and of the long sentence ; namely, a judicious
employment of the composita, the several members concise,
but so closely united logically as to work together into one
compactly ordered thought. Thus is secured to an agreeable
extent the crispness of the short and the sustained course of
the long.

Example. — The whole impression of the following is one of brevity,
yet the one thought flows progressively through the several members :
" Thought and speech are inseparable from each other. Matter and ex-
pression are parts of one ; style is a thinking out into language. This is
what I have been laying down, and this is literature ; not things, not the
verbal symbols of things ; not on the other hand mere words ; but thoughts
expressed in language."2

2. Between long sentences of detailed thought it is useful,
not to say necessary, to insert short transitional sentences,
suggesting in sententious form the thought that is to succeed,
as a basis to which the illustrative details may be referred.
This is like first erecting a framework and then surrounding
it with the finished and colored form ; it serves also, under

1 Newman, Idea of a University, p. 276.

THE SENTENCE. 349

however elaborate an utterance, to keep the reader aware of
the core of the thought.1

Example. — In the following passage note how much the clearness and
easy progress of the thought are promoted by the alternating short sen-
tences, each a compend of its succeeding elaboration.

" It was this opinion which mitigated kings into companions, and raised
private men to be fellows with kings. Without force, or opposition, it sub-
dued the fierceness of pride and power ; it obliged sovereigns to submit to
the soft collar of social esteem, compelled stern authority to submit to ele-
gance, and gave a domination vanquisher of laws, to be subdued by manners.
But now all is to be changed. All the pleasing illusions, which made
power gentle, and obedience liberal, which harmonized the different shades
of life, and which, by a bland assimilation, incorporated into politics the
sentiments which beautify and soften private society, are to be dissolved by
this new conquering empire of light and reason. All the decent drapery of
life is to be rudely torn off. All the superadded ideas, furnished from the
wardrobe of a moral imagination, which the heart owns, and the under-
standing ratifies, as necessary to cover the defects of our naked shivering
nature, and to raise it to dignity in our own estimation, are to be exploded
as a ridiculous, absurd, and antiquated fashion." 2

3. Not only may the short sentence serve as a transition
and compend ; it is equally useful a^ a summarizer, gathering
into application and conclusion the gist of the preceding long
sentence.

Example. — The long and elaborate sentence of amplification quoted
on p. 347, which was preceded by a short compend sentence, is succeeded
by the following brief sentences of summary : " It follows him about as
a shadow. His thought and feeling are personal, and so his language is
personal."

1 " At times you reason inductively or deductively in linked and rather long-drawn
sentences of the type of Evoluta. Among these you will now and then intersperse £
Simplex, perhaps a very brief one, as round as a bullet, which puts the whole theme
in a nutshell — the kernel of the contention. This is the apophthegmatic use of the
Simplex, an admirable and effective device, effectual because eminently natural, and
for the same reason thoroughly artistic." — Earle, English Prose, p. 209.

a Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, p. 90.

350 COMPOSITION.

II.

As to Mass. — The manner in which the emphasis of differ-
ent sentences is distributed gives rise to various types of sen-
tence massing, each of which has its uses in the evolution of
the thought and its effects in the texture and movement of the
diction.

The Periodic Sentence. — This is the name technically given
to the sentence massed according to the principle of suspen-
sion ; which latter has been denned and exemplified above,
pp. 279-287. A period, then, is a sentence wherein the ele-
ment of main significance is delayed till the close, and mean-
while prepared for by preliminaries of circumstance, condition,
or predication.1

The great advantage of the periodic form lies in the fact
that it keeps up and concentrates the reader's attention.
This makes it easier to place qualifying elements rightly, and
is thus favorable to unity of structure, as all is grouped with
reference to the suspended idea. Its general effect, when
employed in large proportion to other types, is to impart
stateliness and dignity to weighty subjects, and to light sub-
jects neatness and finish. In impassioned subjects it is often
useful for regulating the reader's emotion by keeping the
tension of mind uniform until the culminating idea is reached.

Examples. — The stately, formal effect of the periodic sentence may be
illustrated from De Quincey, who is regarded as the most periodic writer
of the century. "Upon me, as upon others scattered' thinly by tens and

1 " At the risk of being slightly inaccurate, it might be well to go a little deeper
into the substance of the periodic structure. What exactly do we imply by saying
that the meaning is suspended till the close ? We imply that the reader's interest is
kept in suspense till the close. And how is this done ? Generally, it may be said,
by bringing on predicates before what they are predicated of, and, which is virtually
a similar process, qualifications before what they qualify ; letting us know descriptive
adjuncts, results, conditions, alternatives, oratorical contrasts, of subjects, states, or
actions, before we formally know the particular subjects, states, or actions, contem-
plated by the writer." — Minto, Manual of English Prose Literature, p. 4.

THE SENTENCE. 351

twenties over every thousand years, fell too powerfully and too early the
vision of life."1 — "And if, in the vellum palimpsest, lying amongst the
other diplomata of human archives or libraries, there is anything fantastic
or which moves to laughter, as oftentimes there is in the grotesque collisions
of those successive themes, having no natural connection, which by pure
accident have consecutively occupied the roll, yet, in our own heaven-created
palimpsest, the deep memorial palimpsest of the brain, there are not and
cannot be such incoherencies." 1

On the other hand, the number and intricacy of the suspen-
sive details are a draft on the reader's interpreting power ;
the writer needs to watch them with this limitation in mind.2
The periodic type is the one least favorable to ease in read-
ing. Further, being in its nature a somewhat ponderous,
formal structure, it ought in general to be confined to subject-
matter that requires such dignity of expression, and applied
to lighter subjects only as a touch of artificial finish will
heighten their effect. This has to be determined by literary
tact.

Note. — To apply the periodic style to everyday and domestic subjects
is apt to have an effect of over-pompousness and bombast, as if one's com-
mon affairs were subjects of state. In the sentence beginning " Upon me,"
above, for instance, one feels that the " me " must be a rather important
personage to merit so pompous a statement.

The Loose Sentence. — In the loose sentence the principle
of suspension is not observed. Qualifying, explanatory, and
alternative elements are added as they occur to the mind, after
the ideas to which they belong, with no apparent attempt at
studied grouping. The test of a loose sentence is, that it
may be stopped before the end, and yet leave the part thus
far given grammatically complete. The term loose conveys
no disparaging connotation ; it is merely a technical term for
a structure just as legitimate and just as susceptible to artistic
finish as the periodic.

1 De QuiNCEY, S/nfiria de Profundis, Works, Vol. i, pp. 257, 233.

2 See the Cautions and Regulations given above, pp. 283 sqq.

352 COMPOSITION.

Examples. — Take the periodic sentence quoted on p. 285, above, anc
put the main assertion first, and the type becomes loose : " We came tc
our journey's end at last, with no small difficulty, after much fatigue
through deep roads and bad weather." — In the following the places are
marked where the sentence might be stopped and yet remain grammaticallj
complete : " He does not write from hearsay, | but from sight and expe
rience ; | it is the scenes that he has lived and labored amidst, that he
describes : | those scenes, rude and humble as they are, have kindled beau-
tiful emotions in his soul, | noble thoughts, and definite resolves ; | and he
speaks forth what is in him, not from any outward call of vanity or interest,
but because his heart is too full to be silent." *

The advantage of the loose sentence is that it is more like
conversation than the periodic, and hence more easy, less
formal. It is especially adapted, therefore, to the more
familiar and everyday kinds of discourse, such as narrative,
letter writing, and popular addresses ; and to the ordinary
topics of common life and fact.

On the other hand, while a perfect loose sentence is as
hard to make as a perfect period, the loose type is the one
most naturally happened upon without effort, or when the
sentence is left to make itself. The faults that beset this
type are therefore the faults arising from slipshod thinking
and careless workmanship ; namely, rambling incoherence
and dilution of the thought.

Note. — Just as the periodic makes more natural use of the evoluta
type, with its internal subordination to a main assertion ; so in the loose
sentence the composita, with its coordinate clauses, figures most largely.

The Balanced Sentence. — The principle of the balanced sen-
tence has been treated under Repetition of Construction, p.
308, above. When the repeated construction dominates the
whole sentence, that is, when the sentence consists of two
members similar in construction and setting off each other, it
is said to be balanced. The answering construction is oftei

1 Carlyle on Burns. Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, Vol. i, p. 267.

THE SENTENCE. 353

reenforced by antithesis ; and sometimes it varies the distri-
bution of emphasis by the employment of chiasmus.

Example. — "He defended him when living, amidst the clamors of his
enemies; and praised him when dead, amidst the silence of his friends."
The antithetic words living, dead ; clamors, silence; enemies, friends, —
make this balance very elaborate.

The balanced structure is easy to interpret, and easy to
remember, because the similarly ordered clauses lend dis-
tinction to each other, and make it easy to fix the points that
are of most importance. This fact suggests what the balanced
sentence is especially good for: to put into rememberable
form, into a kind of aphorism, the occasional thought that
comes out of surrounding material like a gist, or lesson, or
summary.

On the other hand, as it is the most artificial type of sen-
tence, it is the most easily overdone ; its rhetorical power, in
fact, depends on the comparative rarity of its use. Being so
artificial, too, it is apt to become enslaving and manneristic.
From the craving for the familiar measure, there is a tempta-
tion to fill out the balance by tautological or forced assertions.1

Example. — -The evil of attempting to make balance, with its aids of
antithesis and alliteration, the staple of writing, is illustrated in the style
called euphuism, which, though utterly unreadable now, had a prodigious
vogue among the courtiers of Queen Elizabeth. The following few sen-
tences will give a little taste of euphuistic style : " Therfore my good
Euphues, for these doubts and dumpes of mine, either remoue the cause,
or reueale it. Thou hast hetherto founde me a cheerefull companion in
thy myrth, and nowe shalt thou finde me as carefull with thee in thy
moane. If altogether thou maist not be cured, yet maist thou bee com-
forted. If ther be any thing yat either by my friends may be procured, or
by my life atteined, that may either heale thee in part, or helpe thee in all,
I protest to thee by the name of a friend, that it shall rather be gotten with

1 The same danger has been noticed, page 275, abo"e, of antithesis, which, in fact,
figures largely in balance. These two, to which may be added alliteration, are the
rhetorical devices most liable to become a snare to the writer.

354 COMPOSITION.

the losse of my body, than lost by getting a kingdome. ' Thou hast triec
me, therefore trust me : thou hast trusted me in many things, therfore tr;
me in this one thing. I never yet failed, and now I wil not fainte. B<
bolde to speake and blush not : thy sore is not so angry but I can salue it
the wound not so deepe but I can search it, thy griefe not so great but ]
can ease it. If it be ripe it shalbe lawnced, if it be broken it shalbt
tainted, be it never so desperat it shalbe cured."1

III.

Combinations and Proportions. — The short and the long sen-
tences of a passage, as we have seen, are related to each
other, roughly speaking, somewhat as statement and detail,
proposition and enlargement. The relations of periodic and
loose sentences rise more out of the dynamic stress ; the loose
sentence, its stress-point attracted to the beginning, taking
up the cue at the end of the period preceding. Thus the two
types answer to and reenforce each other.

As a matter of fact, however, the actual number of periodic
sentences is much smaller than the number of loose sentences ;
and when we recognize the so-called periodic style we get its
peculiar effect not from a predominance but from a moderate
percentage of periodic sentences.

i. By the best writers periodic sentences are constantly
relieved by loose ones ; it would indeed be hard to find two
rigid periods in succession, except in cases where the periodic
order is accumulated for the iteration of structure. The
requirements of the dynamic stress necessitate variation.

Note. — The following, with its three sentences all of varying types and
lengths, derives a charm from this very diversity : " And then, in the deep
stillness of the desert air — unbroken by falling stream, or note of bird, or
tramp of beast, or cry of man — came the whisper, of a voice as of a gentle
breath — of a voice so small that it was almost like silence. Then he knew
that the moment was come. He drew, as was his wont, his rough mantle
over his head ; he wrapped his face in its ample folds ; he came out from

1 Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit, Arber's reprint, p. 65.

THE SENTENCE. 355

the sheltering rock, and stood beneath the cave to receive the Divine
communications." x

2. Nor is it often that sentences are found conforming
rigidly throughout to the periodic structure. The same sen-
tence, especially if long, may follow the suspensive structure
up to a certain point, and then be finished loose ; this is a
natural course, too, the loose addition building its detail on
what the periodic has put into stress.

Example. — The following sentence, strictly periodic as far as the word
" opinion," goes on loose to enlarge on what the first part has yielded. " I
think that in England, partly from the want of an Academy, partly from a
national habit of intellect to which that want of an Academy is itself due,
there exists too little of what I may call a public force of correct literary
opinion, possessing within certain limits a clear sense of what is right and
wrong, sound and unsound, and sharply recalling men of ability and learn-
ing from any flagrant misdirection of these their advantages." 2

1 Stanley, History of the Jewish Church, Vol. ii, p. 341.

2 Matthew Arnold.

CHAPTER XL
THE PARAGRAPH.

As in the sentence we reach the first complete organic
product of thinking,1 so in the paragraph we first attain the
range and finish of a whole composition ; in one case, indeed,
that of the editorial paragraph, it ranks definitely as an inde-
pendent literary form. As such, and as obeying the essential
procedure of every full discourse, it is the unit of invention,
as the sentence is the unit of style. Because, however, the
internal articulations and proportions, though clearly trace-
able, are still on a small scale, still somewhat embryonic, the
paragraph is better studied as a stage of style than as a
beginning of invention.

Definition. — A paragraph is a connected series of sentences
constituting the development of a single topic.

new

Note. — Mechanically, a paragraph is distinguished, both in print and
manuscript, by beginning on a new line, and by indenting, that is, with-
drawing the opening word an em's width toward the middle.

In recording, conversation between different persons, the form of a
paragraph is given to what each interlocutor says, irrespective of the
amount or nature of the matter included. This, unless constructed to a
topic, is hardly to be called a paragraph; it is a thing in paragraph's
clothing.

In this definition are implied the qualities that should gov-
ern a paragraph : unity, because it is concerned with a single
topic ; continuity, because it is a connected series of sen-
tences ; and proportion, because it is an orderly, systematic

1 See above, p. 311
356

THE PARAGRAPH. 357

development. All the stages and details of construction must
keep the integrity of these qualities in view.

How Long a Paragraph should be. — A subordinate question
this, but by no means idle or unimportant. For it is not
mechanical alone ; it is a question how to use rightly both
the instinctive impressions and the interpreting powers of
the reader. And as is true in so many other cases, it is
answered by a judicious compromise between the too-long
and the too-short.

On the one hand, in keeping the paragraph from running
on too long, due regard should be had for the appearance of
the page. Every reader can recall how often he has been
repelled from a book by the mere fact that whole solid
pages occur without paragraph breaks ; and how often he
has yielded to the attraction of an open, easy looking page.
To write with this instinctive feeling of the reader in mind
is not to humor a whim ; rather it is a practical though indi-
rect way of trying to get the cumbrous and lumbering tend-
ency out of one's thought and bring it vigorously to its
point. It is therefore a dictate both of good looks and good
workmanship to avoid paragraphs of more than a page in
length ; and frequent relief of long paragraphs by shorter
ones is a great help to readableness.

On the other hand, it must be recognized that too short a
paragraph lacks weight and articulation. Ordinarily as many
as three or more sentences are requisite to give mass enough
to develop a topic satisfactorily.1 Less than that number is
apt, while it gives a Frenchy, snippy effect to the style, to
leave the topic too superficially treated.

Note. — Professor Earle's idea of the smallest scale on which a built
paragraph is practicable, with his example, may here be quoted. " The

1 This refers, of course, to the paragraph that not only proposes but develops a
topic. The short transitional or preliminary paragraph, to be noticed later (p. 381),
is an exception more apparent than real.

358 COMPOSITION.

term paragraph can hardly be applied to anything short of three sentences
We sometimes see a satisfying result from three sentences, something whicl
is felt to be a kind of whole; — whole at least as a distinct member o:
larger discourse. The following is a fair example.

" ' The first impulse of man is to seek for enjoyment. He lives with
more or less impetuosity, more or less irregularity, to conquer for himseli
a home and blessedness of a mere earthly kind. Not till later (in hov>
many cases never) does he ascertain that on earth there is no such home :
that his true home lies beyond the world of sense, is a celestial home.' " 1

This quoted paragraph not only illustrates the point made, but will
serve as a good brief model to get into the student's mind the typical
movement of a paragraph structure.

I. THE PARAGRAPH IN SUM.

Dealing as it does with a topic, the paragraph sums up to
a unity ; the total effect and impression left upon the reader's
mind is of a distinct, bounded, and, within its limits, complete
subject. In this respect it has the roundedness, the begin-
ning, body, and end, of an independent discourse. But as it is
merely a stage in the unfolding of a larger subject, and as it
represents that stage not in outline but in finished treatment,
we do not reduce its topic to the sharp precision of a formal
proposition. The topic sentence may, like the other sen-
tences, be elaborated in structure and style, or be expressed
in figurative language, or be a merely hinted statement. Too
many are deceived by this fact into thinking that a paragraph
may be trusted to make itself, with no special thought of a
controlling topic. This is a fatal mistake. However disguised
or diffused, the topic, the unitary result, is there, and must
therefore be first proposed in the writer's mind ; so that as
a total effect the paragraph may be reducible to a single
sentence.2

1 Earle, English Prose, p. 212. The quotation from Carlyle.

2 " A paragraph has unity when you can state its substance in a single sentence ;
otherwise it is very apt to lack it." — Wendell, English Composition, p. 124. — .
student of biology thus puts it : " It is necessary to determine the axillary idea
the paragraph, about which the ancillary ideas may be grouped."

THE PARAGRAPH. 359

Note. — It is in the flexible yet scientifically ordered paragraph, the
thinking of a mass of thought at once to nucleus and lucid organism, that
the writing of modern prose achieves perhaps its greatest triumph as an
art.1

This easy informal texture of the paragraph makes it neces-
sary here to dwell with some discrimination on the topic.

The Topic : its Prominence. — In all cases the topic should
so control every part of the structure as to be a clearly appre-
hended resultant or sum of the whole. Different kinds of
subject-matter, however, may cause this to be apprehended
in different ways : it may be definitely pointed out, in so
many words ; or it may be left for the reader to gather and
mentally realize as the total effect.

i. In matter of the argumentative or expository kind,
wherein much depends on a defined centre and dependency
of thought, the topic of a paragraph is expressed, either as a
proposed subject of treatment, or as an informal proposition,
so that the reader can cooperate with the writer in discover-
ing the steps of explication or reasoning.

Example. — In the following the opening sentence, culminating in the
two beacon words at the end, will be at once accepted by any reader as
the controlling topic : —

" Great and various as the powers of Bacon were, he owes his wide and
durable fame chiefly to this, that all those powers received their direction
from common sense. His love of the vulgar useful, his strong sympathy
with the popular notions of good and evil, and the openness with which he
avowed that sympathy, are the secret of his influence. There was in his
system no cant, no illusion. He had no anointing for broken bones, no
fine theories de finibus, no arguments to persuade men out of their senses.

1 " The triumph of modern Art in Writing is manifested in the structure of the
Paragraph. The glory of Latin composition must be looked for in the great sen-
tence which occasionally recurs ; the glory of French or English composition lies in
the subtle combination of sentences which makes the Paragraph. The secret of
Macaulay's charm lies, not, as has been imagined, in his pointed antithesis, or in his
balanced periods (for these, if they have their attraction, have also undoubtedly their
elements of repulsion), but in his masterly command of the Paragraph." — Earle,
English Prose, p. 91.

360 COMPOSITION.

He knew that men, and philosophers as well as other men, do actually love
life, health, comfort, honor, security, the society of friends, and do actuallj
dislike death, sickness, pain, poverty, disgrace, danger, separation fron
those to whom they are attached. He knew that religion, though it ofter
regulates and moderates these feelings, seldom eradicates them ; nor did
he think it desirable for mankind that they should be eradicated. The
plan of eradicating them by conceits like those of Seneca, or syllogisms
like those of Chrysippus, was too preposterous to be for a moment enter-
tained by a mind like his. He did not understand what wisdom there
could be in changing names where it was impossible to change things ; in
denying that blindness, hunger, the gout, the rack, were evils, and calling
them diroTrpo^y/xeva ; in refusing to acknowledge that health, safety, plenty,
were good things, and dubbing them by the name of ddedepopa. In his
opinions on all these subjects, he was not a Stoic, nor an Epicurean, nor
an Academic, but what would have been called by Stoics, Epicureans, and
Academics a mere ISlwttjs, a mere common man. And it was precisely
because he was so that his name makes so great an era in the. history of
the world. It was because he dug deep that he was able to pile high. It
was because, in order to lay his foundations, he went down into those
parts of human nature which lie low, but which are not liable to change,
that the fabric which he reared has risen to so stately an elevation,
stands with such immovable strength."1

2. In matter of the descriptive or narrative kind, or in any
accumulation of concrete details grouped merely in space or
time, the topic may be left unexpressed in words, diffused as
it were through the whole, and to be felt by the reader as he
thinks himself into the limits of the scene.2

Example. — In the following the topic, which after we have read the
paragraph we perceive to be " Hester Prynne on- her way to the pillory," is
nowhere expressed ; we simply sum it up from the circumstances of time,
place, and event : —

"A lane was forthwith opened through the crowd of spectators. Pn
ceded by the beadle, and attended by an irregular procession of stern-
browed men and unkindly visaged women, Hester Prynne set forth towards

1 Macaulay, Essay on Lord Bacon, Essays, Vol. iii, p. 463.

2 This discrimination of subject-matter as bearing on the topic is, it will be noted,
merely an extension to the scale of the paragraph of the same discrimination already
applied to clauses within the sentences, and their claim to unity ; see above, pp. 323,
324-

THE PARAGRAPH. 361

the place appointed for her punishment. A crowd of eager and curious
school-boys, understanding little of the matter in hand, except that it gave
them a half-holiday, ran before her progress, turning their heads contin-
ually to stare into her face, and at the winking baby in her arms, and at
the ignominious letter on her breast. It was no great distance, in those
days, from the prison-door to the market-place. Measured by the prison-
er's experience, however, it might be reckoned a journey of some length ;
for, haughty as her demeanor was, she perchance underwent an agony from
every footstep of those that thronged to see her, as if her heart had been
flung into the street for them all to spurn and trample upon. In our
nature, however, there is a provision, alike marvellous and merciful, that
the sufferer should never know the intensity of what he endures by its
present torture, but chiefly by the pang that rankles after it. With almost
a serene deportment, therefore, Hester Prynne passed through this portion
of her ordeal, and came to a sort of scaffold, at the western extremity of
the market-place. It stood nearly beneath the eaves of Boston's earliest
church, and appeared to be a fixture there." 1

The Topic : its Place. — Typically, and therefore in the
great predominance of cases, the topic, when expressed or
indicated, stands at the beginning of the paragraph. Occa-
sional modifications or accessories of this arrangement, how-
ever, need here to be mentioned, on account of the special
advantages that they secure.

i. It is only exceptionally that a paragraph stands alone ;
and being part and stage of a larger work, it has to be mind-
ful of what precedes and what follows. It is a link in the
chain of continuous thought which makes up the whole com-
position. Hence at the immediate outset there is generally
more or less of connective or preliminary material, varying
in amount from a single word of relation or a few words of
summary to several sentences.

Examples. — How paragraphs link on to paragraphs may be seen by
the following, which are the opening sentences of paragraphs, quoted far
enough to introduce the topic : —

" Cray's quality of mind, then, we see; his quality of soul will no less
bear inspection. His reserve, his delicacy," etc.

1 Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, p. 75.

362 COMPOSITION.

" Testimonies such as these are not called forth by a fastidious effemi-
nate weakling ; they are not called forth, even, by mere qualities of mind ;
they are called forth by qualities of soul. And of Gray's high qualities of
soul, . . . his excellent seriousness," etc.

" And with all this strenuous seriousness, a pathetic sentiment," etc.

" What wonder, then, that with this troublous cloud . . . Gray . . . pro-
duced so little," 1 etc.

2. The suspended paragraph, that is, the paragraph
wherein the revelation of the topic is delayed till the end,
is somewhat rare. Like the suspended sentence and in cor-
respondingly greater degree, its effect is studied and rhetor-
ical ; it may have practical uses, too, in enabling the writer
to get in considerations to support a startling or unwelcome
assertion before the assertion itself is made.

Examples. — The suspended paragraph quoted from Myers on p. 283,
above, is a good example of a word kept back for effect. — In the following
paragraph, the topic, " the air of Attica," does not appear till the last sen-
tence, and when it appears its significance is well anticipated : —

" Many a more fruitful coast or isle is washed by the blue ^Egean, many
a spot is there more beautiful or sublime to see, many a territory more
ample ; but there was one charm in Attica, which in the same perfection
was nowhere else. The deep pastures of Arcadia, the plain of Argos, the
Thessalian vale, these had not the gift ; Boeotia, which lay to its immediate
north, was notorious for its very want of it. The heavy atmosphere of
that Boeotia might be good for vegetation, but it was associated in popular
belief with the dulness of the Boeotian intellect: on the contrary, the spe-
cial purity, elasticity, clearness, and salubrity of the air of Attica, fit con-
comitant and emblem of its genius, did that for it which earth did not ; —
it brought out every bright hue and tender shade of the landscape over
which it was spread, and would have illuminated the face even of a more
bare and rugged country." 2

3. When the writer feels that the topic is especially impor-
tant, or that much depends upon it, a natural impulse is to
repeat it at the end of the paragraph, either in elaborated

1 Matthew Arnold, Thomas Gray, Essays in Criticism, Second Series.

2 Newman, Historical Sketches, Vol. iii, p. 20.

THE PARAGRAPH. 363

statement or, as oftener occurs, in apothegm. In such
case not repetition alone is sought, but summary and
enforcement.

Example. — In the following paragraph the topic is propounded in a
plain statement at the beginning, and then, after the amplification, is
repeated in a somewhat more elaborate form at the end : —

" A man of a Polite Imagination is let into a great many Pleasures, that
the Vulgar are not capable of receiving. He can converse with a Picture,
and find an agreeable Companion in a Statue. He meets with a secret
Refreshment in a Description, and often feels a greater Satisfaction in the
Prospect of Fields and Meadows, than another does in the Possession. It
gives him, indeed, a Kind of Property in every thing he sees, and makes
the most rude uncultivated Parts of Nature administer to his Pleasures :
So that he looks upon the World, as it were, in another Light, and
discovers in it a Multitude of Charms, that conceal themselves from the
generality of Mankind." 1

The Double Topic. — A mould of paragraph analogous to the
composita type of sentence calls here for mention : the para-
graph that sums up in a double topic. It is not very com-
mon ; but being highly artistic, is correspondingly notable
when successfully achieved.

While a composita sentence may accumulate a considerable
number of coordinate members, the more complicated scale of
the paragraph can hardly venture with safety on more than
two ; hence the term, double topic. These members gener-
ally answer each other as a contrasting pair ; and may either
occupy each its half of the structure, or be set against each
other in a series of distinctions.

Examples. — i. In the following the first topic, strength, passes by a
natural gradation into the second topic, sweetness ; the two making up thus
an answering and contrasting pair : —

"Critics of Michelangelo have sometimes spoken as if the only charac-
teristic of his genius were a wonderful strength, verging, as in the things
of the imagination great strength always does, on what is singular or

1 Addison, in The Spectator, No. 411.

364 COMPOSITION.

strange. A certain strangeness, something of the blossoming of the aloe,
is indeed an element in all true works of art ; that they shall excite or sur-
prise us is indispensable. But that they shall give pleasure and exert a
charm over us is indispensable too ; and this strangeness must be sweet
also — a lovely strangeness. And to the true admirers of Michelangelo
this is the true type of the Michelangelesque — sweetness and strength,
pleasure with surprise, an energy of conception which seems at every
moment about to break through all the conditions of comely form, recov-
ering, touch by touch, a loveliness found usually only in the simplest natu-
ral things — ex forti dulcedo" 1

2. In the following a series of contrasts bring out the double topic of
the Platonic and the Baconian philosophy : —

" To sum up the whole, we should say that the aim of the Platonic phil-
osophy was to exalt man into a god. The aim of the Baconian philosophy
was to provide man with what he requires while he continues to be man.
The aim of the Platonic philosophy was to raise us far above vulgar wants.
The aim of the Baconian philosophy was to supply our vulgar wants. The
former aim was noble ; but the latter was attainable. Plato drew a good
bow ; but, like Acestes in Virgil, he aimed at the stars ; and therefore,
though there was no want of strength or skill, the shot was thrown away.
His arrow was indeed followed by a track of dazzling radiance, but it
struck nothing. Bacon fixed his eye on a mark which was placed on the
earth, and within bow-shot, and hit it in the white. The philosophy of
Plato began in words and ended in words, noble words indeed, words such
as were to be expected from the finest of human intellects exercising bound-
less dominion over the finest of human languages. The philosophy of
Bacon began in observations and ended in arts."2

II. THE PARAGRAPH IN STRUCTURE.

That a paragraph should have a structure, palpable, planned,
articulated, is a necessity arising from the second and third
qualities already mentioned, — continuity and proportion. A
continuous current of thought, unbroken, undislocated, — this
is its ideal. The end that the working out of a structure is
to attain is, keeping this current unbroken, and keeping it at

1 Pater, The Renaissance, p. 75.

2 Macaulay, Essay on Lord Bacon, Essays, Vol. iii, p. 458.

THE PARAGRAPH. 365

every point in place and symmetry. This requires system-
atic arrangement, plan.1

By a plan, however, is not meant a formal and obtrusive
skeleton-structure, as if the paragraph were merely an essay
within an essay. Such advertising of the plan belongs rather
to the next stage of procedure, the composition as a whole.
It is to be remembered that the individual sentences of the
paragraph, being the final expression of their thought, are at
once outline and amplification ; the outline is covered and
disguised, as such, by the detail and coloring of which it is
the nucleus. None the less truly, however, it is there, and
has to be determinately put there ; under the finished surface
it works, unperceived, a constant effect of orderly progress.
It has its introductory outset ; it keeps the reader aware
throughout of the mutual bearings of the thoughts ; it swings
round to a cadence and conclusion.

Relation of Parts to Sum. — In the evolution of such a plan
the whole current of the paragraph has to be made up with
traceable reference to the sum. It matters not whether this
latter is expressed as a topic or implied as a total resultant ;
in any case the relation, the scale, the distance, the movement
of each sentence must be realized and shaped with this con-
nection in mind.

Typical Scheme of Paragraph Structure. — This requisite may
best be made clear, perhaps, by presenting here a scheme of
structure, to which the body of the paragraph may be referred
as a type. This scheme, it may be premised, is not an arbi-
trary framework ; it represents, in fact, on the scale of the para-
graph, the logical progress that obtains in all ordered thinking.

1 " Words and sentences are subjects of revision ; paragraphs and whole composi-
tions are subjects of prevision." — WENDELL, English Composition, p. 117.

366 COMPOSITION.

If, as stated above,1 the total effect of a paragraph should
be reducible to a single sentence, conversely the expansion of a
single sentence, with due observance of the legitimate depend-
encies of clause and clause, may be taken as the pattern of
paragraph structure.2 The same relations exist between sen-
tences in the paragraph as between clauses in the sentence3;
only in the paragraph, as befits its ampler scale, the relations
are more strongly marked, and grouped with greater sense of
sequence and climax. In this respect the plan of the para-
graph is intermediate between that of the sentence and that
of the whole composition. Generally speaking, then, any sen-
tence, to be worthy of a place in the plan, should contribute
directly to explain, or particularize, or prove, or apply the
thought of the topic.

Nor should these functions be mixed at hap-hazard. The
sense of sequence and climax just mentioned dictates that
they rise out of each other in a logical growth, and be gradu-
ated from a natural outset to a natural finish. The following
table, in which the interior organism of the paragraph is set
forth in three main stages, may be taken as a comprehensive
scheme of structure.

The topic, expressed or hinted.
I. Whatever is needed to define the topic.
Taking the form of

Repetition,
Obverse, or
Explication.

1 See above, p. 358.

2 " The principles which so plainly bring paragraphs and order out of chaos
the very same which, applied habitually and under different conditions, make the
difference between good sentences and bad." — Wendell, English Composition,
p. 118.

8 What range these may cover has been specified above, pp. 323, 324.

THE PARAGRAPH. 367

II. Whatever is needed to establish the topic.
Taking the form of
Example,
Illustration,

Detail (particularization), or
Proof.

III. Whatever is needed to apply the topic.
Taking the form of
Summary,
Consequence, or
Enforcement.

Of course no single paragraph could follow all these sub-
divisions without being unwieldy ; they are presented in this
relative order merely to show the place they occupy with
reference to a rounded scheme. When expressed, this is
their typical order and relation. A like thing may be said
of the main stages themselves. These may be proportioned
in a great variety of ways ; some one of them generally tak-
ing the predominance, in bulk and specialization, the others
condensed or even wholly elided. It is on this freedom of
variation and proportion that the flexibility, the individual
character, of a paragraph depends. All the while, however,
the type exists, a kind of steadying-point in the writer's mind,
to keep the lines of treatment from becoming lawless and
unbalanced.

The claims of length, too, have an important application
here. Rightly to define, or establish, or apply, or even state
a topic may require so much space that only the section of the
scheme that deals with this can be given within reasonable
paragraph limits ; the other sections being left in turn to
their place, and disposed of according to their importance.
It is this fact, largely, which gives rise to the various kinds

368

COMPOSITION.

of paragraphs, to be noticed later x ; it has also a bearing on
the plan of composition as a whole.2

Examples. — Two examples, given here, may illustrate respectively
how a paragraph may fairly round out the type, or may confine itself to
some section of it. Of so varied a subject not more than these illustrations
can well be undertaken.

i. A paragraph in which the three stages are all

represented. It is about Oliver Cromwell : —

" No sovereign ever carried to the throne so large
a portion of the best qualities of the middling orders,
so strong a sympathy with the feelings and interests
of his people. He was sometimes driven to arbitrary
measures ; but he had a high, stout, honest, English
heart. Hence it was that he loved to surround his
throne with such men as Hale and Blake. Hence it
was that he allowed so large a share of political lib-
erty to his subjects, and that, even when an opposi-
tion dangerous to his power and to his person almost
compelled him to govern by the sword, he was still
anxious to leave a germ from which, at a more favor-
able season, free institutions might spring. We firmly
believe that, if his first Parliament had not commenced
its debates by disputing his title, his government would
have been as mild at home as it was energetic and
able abroad. He was a soldier ; he had risen by war.
Had his ambition been of an impure or selfish kind,
it would have been easy for him to plunge his country
into continental hostilities on a large scale, and to
dazzle the restless factions which he ruled, by the
splendor of his victories. Some of his enemies have
sneeringly remarked, that in the successes obtained
under his administration he had no personal share ;
as if a man who had raised himself from obscurity
to empire solely by his military talents could have
any unworthy reason for shrinking from military
enterprise. This reproach is his highest glory. In
the success of the English navy he could have no

1 See below, p. 379.

2 See below, p. 441.

more or less fully
Topic proposed.

I. Defined by con-
crete repetition.

II. ESTABLISHEDby

examples, drawn
from his policy

at home

and abroad ;

and from his
magnanimity

in military

THE PARAGRAPH. 369

selfish interest. Its triumphs added nothing to his

fame ; its increase added nothing to his means of

overawing his enemies ; its great leader was not his

friend. Yet he took a peculiar pleasure in encourag- and in naval

ing that noble service which, of all the instruments triumphs.

employed by an English government, is the most

impotent for mischief, and the most powerful for

good. His administration was glorious, but with no III. Applied by

vulgar glory. It was not one of those periods of consequences in

overstrained and convulsive exertion which neces- the prosperity of

sarily produce debility and languor. Its energy was

natural, healthful, temperate. He placed England at the people

the head of the Protestant interest, and in the first

rank of Christian powers. He taught every nation

to value her friendship and to dread her enmity. But and of the govern-

he did not squander her resources in a vain attempt ment.

to invest her with that supremacy which no power, in

the modern system of Europe, can safely affect, or

can long retain."1

2. A paragraph devoted entirely to the middle or establishing stage,
by giving examples. The topic, which the previous paragraph has defined
at considerable length, is the power which great writers have to shape the
language and literature of succeeding ages : —

" If there is any one who illustrates this remark, it is Gibbon ; I seem
to trace his vigorous condensation and peculiar rhythm at every turn in the
literature of the present day. Pope, again, is said to have tuned our ver-
sification. Since his time, any one, who has an ear and turn for poetry,
can with little pains throw off a copy of verses equal or superior to the
poet's own, and with far less of study and patient correction than would
have been demanded of the poet himself for their production. Compare
the choruses of the Samson Agonistes with any stanza taken at random
in Thalaba : how much had the language gained in the interval between
them ! Without denying the high merits of Southey's beautiful romance,
we surely shall not be wrong in saying, that in its unembarrassed eloquent
flow, it is the language of the nineteenth century that speaks, as much as
the author himself."'2

In detailing this important topic, indeed, the author goes on to give
further instances and citations for two paragraphs more, before, in a short
concluding paragraph, he sums up.

1 Macaulay, Essay on Hallani's Constitutional History, Essays, Vol. i, p. 509.
3 NhWMAN, Idea of a University, p. 323.

370 COMPOSITION.

II.

Relation of Parts to Each Other. — In order to preserve con-
tinuity in a paragraph, something more than plan is needed.
There is still to be considered that linking of sentence with
sentence by which the plan itself, real and systematic as it is,
affects the reader not as plan but as uninterrupted flow and cur-
rent of thought. To this end there must be a traceable rela-
tion, a felt reference, of each sentence to its preceding, while
in turn it leaves its assertion in position for the next sentence
to take it up. This reference, equally palpable in either case,
may be explicit or implicit.

Explicit Reference. — This kind of reference between sen-
tences is called explicit because there is some word or phrase
whose definite function it is to make it, something which on
account of this office we call a connective. Two kinds of con-
nectives call here for notice.

i. Conjunctional, words or phrases. These, as has been
demonstrated under the head of Conjunctional Relation,1 have
to do with the direction of the thought, whether as turning it
some new way, — adversative, illative, causal, — or as confirm-
ing it in the direction in which it is already going.

Examples. — The following, in its copiousness of connective words,
illustrates how much more scrupulous the older writers were than the
moderns to mark the relations of sentences : —

" He kept a strait hand on his nobility, and chose rather to advance
clergymen and lawyers, which were more obsequious to him, but had less
interest in the people ; which made for his absoluteness, but not for his
safety. Insomuch as I am persuaded it was one of the causes of his
troublesome reign. For that his nobles, though they were loyal and obe-
dient, yet did not co-operate with him, but let every man go his own way.
He was not afraid of an able man as Lewis the Eleventh was. Bid contrari-
wise he was served by the ablest men that then were to be found ; without
which his affairs could not have prospered as they did. . . . Neither did

1 See above, pp. 259-267.

THE PARAGRAPH. 371

he care how cunning they were that he did employ : for he thought himself
to have the master-reach. And as he chose well, so he held them up
well. For it is a strange thing, that though he were a dark prince, and
infinitely suspicious, and his times full of secret conspiracies and troubles ;
yet in twenty-four years reign he never put down or discomposed coun-
sellor or near servant, save only Stanley the Lord Chamberlain."1

The modern tendency is to make connection unobtrusive by
using conjunctions that may be put inside the sentence, leaving
the outset for more important words, and by omitting such con-
nection as the reader may be trusted to think for himself. The
effect of this is to make the diction not only more equable but
more closely knit ; it is one of the important results of more
masterful art in prose.

Note. — Of connectives that may be removed from the beginning may
be mentioned however, therefore, then, likewise, too ; and such phrases as on
the contrary, as it were, that is, nevertheless. Of connectives that modern
prose very generally suppresses the most notable, perhaps, is for ; the word
and, too, is almost entirely banished from the beginning of the sentence.

2. Demonstrative, words and phrases; and, where these
fail in clearness or strength, repetition of the word or phrase
needed to make the connection. These, not affecting the
direction, are used rather to express some resumption or
immediate sequence, — to make a close joinery of some new
thought with the preceding.2

Note and Example. — Of demonstrative words the personal and
demonstrative pronouns are most relied on. The relative was formerly
so used ; for example : " But he who was of the bond woman was born
after the flesh ; but he of the free woman was by promise. Which things
are an allegory : for these are the two covenants ; the one from the mount
Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar."3 Nowadays, however,
this use is exceptional and somewhat archaic.

1 I!acon, History of Henry VII (quoted from Craik's English Prose, Vol. ii,
p. 29).

2 Under Retrospective Reference, pp. 246-254 above, are given some of the prin-
ciples and cautions connected with demonstrative reference.

8 Galatians iv. 23, 24.

372 COMPOSITION.

Demonstrative phrases are for the most part the combination of ;
demonstrative pronoun with other words, so as to denote some adverbia
relation ; as, in this case, in this manner, under these circumstances, thi.
done, and the like.

The following paragraph will illustrate various means of demonstrativ<
connection, including also repetition : —

" Friedrich does not neglect these points of good manners ; along with
which something of substantial may be privately conjoined. For example
if he had in secret his eye on Jiilich and Berg, could anything be fitter than
to ascertain what the French will think of such an enterprise ? What t/u
French ; and next to them what the English, that is to say, Hanoverians,
who meddle much in affairs of the Reich. For these reasons and others he
likewise, probably with more study than in the Bielfeld case, despatches
Colonel Camas to make his compliment at the French Court, and in an
expert way take soundings there. Camas, a fat sedate military gentle-
man, of advanced years, full of observation, experience and sound sense,
— ' with one arm, which he makes do the work of two, and nobody can
notice that the other arm resting in his coat-breast is of cork, so expert is
he,' — will do in this matter what is feasible ; probably not much for the
present. He is to call on Voltaire, as he passes, who is in Holland again,
at the Hague for some months back ; and deliver him ' a little cask of
Hungary Wine,' which probably his Majesty had thought exquisite. Of
which, and the other insignificant passages between them, we hear more
than enough in the writings and correspondences of Voltaire about this
time."i I1

Implicit Reference. — Quite in line with the tendency, just
spoken of, to put connectives where they will be unobtrusive,
is the art of making the whole reference implicit, that is, a
connection not advertised by words at all, but involved in the
structure of the sentence and in the natural closeness of the
thought.

i. In the structure of the sentence, this reference is effected
by means of inversion for adjustment,2 the change of order
which a succeeding sentence undergoes in obedience to the
attraction exerted by some like or contrasted idea in the

1 Carlyle, History of Frederick the Great, Book xi, Chap, i (Vol. iii, p. 282).

2 For which, see above, p. 278.

THE PARAGRAPH. 373

preceding. With this inversion is often conjoined some form
of demonstrative reference.

Skilfully managed, this manner of reference is very graceful
and powerful. A note of caution, however, should be given.
This makes the sentence rise not out of a topic, but out of the
sentence immediately before. Unless the topic, too, and the
general sum of the paragraph is kept in mind, there is danger
of deflecting the thought a little with each new reference, until
the excursion from the direct path is too great for unity. The
larger as well as the immediate relation, therefore, should be
observed.

Examples. — i. Of inversion for adjustment. In the following inter-
esting example the second sentence has an inverted order in adjustment to
the first ; and the third has an inversion in preparation for the fourth; and
in each case what causes the inversion is an antithetic idea. " All is finite
in the present ; and even that finite is infinite in its velocity of flight
towards death. But in God there is nothing finite ; but in God there is
nothing transitory; but in God there can be nothing that tends to death.
Therefore, it follows, that for God there can be no present. The future is
the present of God, and to the future it is that he sacrifices the human
present."1

2. Of sentence growing out of sentence. The following, though itself
skilfully managed, will suggest how easy it would be by this method of
reference to lead the thought astray unless it were made up with the end
in view. " The first effort of the artist is to represent something that he
has seen or imagined. Out of this effort and the work which it produces,
grow certain methods and habits of representing landscape and architec-
ture and the human figure. Out of these habits grow rules and formulas,
not only for the hand but also for the eye. On these formulas schools are
founded. In these schools the example of masters comes to have an
authority which overshadows and limits the vision of facts as well as the
representation of them."2

2. The most effectual connection made, however, paradox-
ical as it may seem, is where no connection is needed at all ;

1 De Quincey, Savannah-la-Mar, Works, Vol. i, p. 255.

2 Van DYKB, The Gospel for an Age of Doubt, p. 128.

374 COMPOSITION.

where the idea of one sentence is so closely welded to that of
its neighbor that the two make their way as an unbroken and
undeflected current. The omission of explicit connectives is a
prevailing tendency of modern writing, and on the whole is an
indication of closer thinking to correspond x ; still, it is not a
thing that can be left to a vogue to regulate. The fact is, not
all thought will bear this treatment : it is adapted specifically
to ideas having a common bearing, and to series of details or
particulars amplifying a common understood topic. Occasion-
ally, too, when a conjunctional relation is so obvious as to be
unescapable, it may gain in point and strength by omitting the
connective.2

If, then, modern writing omits connectives, it does it not on
account of a newly discovered trick, but because modern think-
ing is more in concretes and details, and employs directer
trains of reasoning ; in other words, the thought has evolved
the style.

Example. — In the following paragraph the sentences all repeat or in
some degree of concreteness particularize the fundamental assertion of the
beginning, and hence need no connectives : —

" You cannot hide any secret. If the artist succor his nagging spirits
by opium or wine, his work will characterize itself as the effect of opium
or wine. If you make a picture or a statue, it sets the beholder in that
state of mind you had when you made it. If you spend for show, on build-
ing, or gardening, or on pictures, or on equipages, it will so appear. We
are all physiognomists and penetrators of character, and things themselves
are detective. If you follow the suburban fashion in building a sumptuous-
looking house for a little money, it will appear to all eyes as a cheap dear
house. There is no privacy that cannot be penetrated. No secret can be

1 " And it is this tacit ratiocination which qualifies the Composita to fill so large
a space as it does in argumentative discourse. It is the vehicle of implied, inexplicit,
and condensed reasoning. . . . The prevailing habit is the ellipse of connectives.
A paragraph strongly knit together by argumentative thought is often seen to have
but one or two very mild conjunctions in it. This is no loss to the force or clear-
ness of the argument, but it certainly may be a loss to its transparency." — Earle,
English Prose, pp. 80, 197.

2 See above, p. 298.

THE PARAGRAPH. 375

kept in the civilized world. Society is a masked ball, where every one
hides his real character, and reveals it by hiding. If a man wish to con-
ceal anything he carries, those whom he meets know that he conceals
somewhat, and usually know what he conceals. Is it otherwise if there
be some belief or some purpose he would bury in his breast ? 'T is as
hard to hide as fire. He is a strong man who can hold down his opinion.
A man cannot utter two or three sentences without disclosing to intelligent
ears precisely where he stands in life and thought, namely, whether in the
kingdom of the senses and the understanding, or in that of ideas and
imagination, in the realm of intuitions and duty. People seem not to see
that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character. We can
only see what we are, and if we misbehave we suspect others. The fame
of Shakespeare or of Voltaire, of Thomas a Kempis or of Bonaparte, char-
acterizes those who give it. As gas-light is found to be the best nocturnal
police, so the universe protects itself by pitiless publicity." 1

III.

Claims of Proportion. — As the paragraph is the orderly
development of a topic, it must be mindful of the relative
importance of things, and its parts should have bulk and
stress to accord therewith ; that is, the paragraph, in its inte-
rior structure, needs to be proportioned.

The proportion between different stages of the plan, as, for
instance, between the defining and establishing parts, is, as we
have seen,2 something to be determined, not by rule, but by
the writer's sense of what his paragraph exists for, and what
treatment his subject-matter requires. It must be left with
him, but it cannot safely be left undetermined. The same
may be said of that perpetual variety in length and type of
sentence which is so essential to the life of the paragraph. It
rises from a delicate sense of relation and proportion, which,
however, is too individual to be prescribed from without.

Digressions. — When a subordinate or merely illustrative
idea is expanded, whether in volume or emphasis, beyond its

1 Emerson, Essay on Worship, Works, Vol. vi, p. 213.

2 See above, p. 367.

376 COMPOSITION.

natural proportion, it becomes a digression, and distracts from
the effect of the main topic.

A digression is to a paragraph what a parenthesis is to a
sentence, and what an episode, to be mentioned later,1 is to a
narrative. For all three the justification is only exceptional,
and more so, it would seem, as the scale of treatment enlarges.
As an occasional means of relieving the tension of strong emo-
tion or severe argumentation, the digression may have its use ;
it needs, however, the masterful direction of a sound literary
sense. And when employed it should be subjected to treat-
ment analogous to that of the parenthesis : softened tone,
lightness and rapidity of diction, a subdued scale of stress.
Its boundaries, too, should be clearly marked ; and especially
the return to the main current should be made with particular
care to make the words of connection and resumption pointed.

Note. — A very short digression, sufficient, however, to show the skill
involved in making a digression well, is shown in the example under the
next heading. It is from De Quincey, the most digressive of modern
writers, whose tendency to expatiate far from his subject is worth study,
because, with his scrupulous care for explicit reference, he always kept his
reader aware both of his ramblings and of his return.2

Parallel Construction. — The repetition of construction, already
applied to elements within the sentence,8 has a somewhat less
marked though not less real application to the structure of the
paragraph. Its most striking and rhetorical use is where sev-
eral sentences dealing with the same stage of amplification are
made on the same model. This, however, needs constant test-
ing lest it become artificial. A more practical rule it is, when
successive sentences deal with the same subject of thought, to
keep that subject in the forefront of attention and stress ; and

1 See below, p. 537.

2 De Quincey's whimsical defense of his rambling tendency may be found in Page,
Thomas De Quincey, his Life and Writings, Vol. ii, p. 64.

3 See above, p. 308.

THE PARAGRAPH. 377

conversely, when subordinate or digressive ideas are intro-
duced, to put them in a different distribution of emphasis, that
they may not be confounded with main ideas. As a grammat-
ical matter of some importance, it is not well to change the
voice of the verb, as from active to passive, unadvisedly;
small matter as it seems, it changes the subject of the sen-
tence, and hence the current of the assertion.

Examples. — i. The somewhat rhetorical balancing of sentences, with
its artificial tendency, may be seen in the paragraph from Macaulay's Essay
oh Milton already quoted from on p. 309. Here are some of the begin-
nings of grouped sentences : " If they were unacquainted .... If their
names .... If their steps " ; " For his sake empires .... For his sake
the Almighty " ; "He had been wrested .... He had been ransomed."
The whole paragraph is highly rhetorical.

2. In the following paragraph the italics show how the principal sub-
ject is kept in like prominence throughout, except in the digressive portion,
here put in brackets, where the subordinate subject, though represented by
the same personal pronoun, is so differently placed that it is never in dan-
ger of being mistaken for the main one. " Her eyes are sweet and subtile,
wild and sleepy, by turns ; oftentimes rising to the clouds, oftentimes chal-
lenging the heavens. She wears a diadem round her head. And I knew
by childish memories that she could go abroad upon the winds, when she
heard that sobbing of litanies, or the thundering of organs, and when she
beheld the mustering of summer clouds. This sister, the elder, it is that
carries keys more than papal at her girdle, which open every cottage and
every palace. She, to my knowledge, sate all last summer by the bedside
of the blind beggar, him that so often and so gladly I talked with, whose
pious daughter, eight years old, with the sunny countenance, resisted the
temptations of play and village mirth to travel all day long on dusty roads
with her afflicted father. [For this did God send her a great reward. In
the spring-time of the year, and whilst yet her own spring was budding, he
recalled her to himself. But her blind father mourns forever over her;
still he dreams at midnight that the little guiding hand is locked within his
own ; and still he wakens to a darkness that is now within a second and a
deeper darkness.] This Mater Lachrymarum also has been sitting all this
winter of 1844-5 within the bedchamber of the Czar, bringing before his
eyes a daughter (not less pious) that vanished to God not less suddenly,
and left behind her a darkness not less profound. By the power of her
keys it is that Our Lady of Tears glides a ghostly intruder into the cham-

378 COMPOSITION.

bers of sleepless men, sleepless women, sleepless children, from Ganges to
the Nile, from Nile to Mississippi. And her, because she is the firstborn
of her house, and has the widest empire, let us honor with the title of
' Madonna.' " 1

Beginnings and Endings. — How these are to proportion in
the paragraph cannot, of course, be laid down by rule ; but
'some suggestions, founded on their function, may here be
given.

The opening sentence of a paragraph, being either the topic-
sentence or a connecting link with the preceding, is ordinarily
a rather short and condensed sentence. When the topic is
defined by some phase of repetition several short pithy sen-
tences, succeeding each other at the beginning, form a very
effective means of getting the paragraph under way. The
style of such opening sentences calls more naturally for con-
ciseness and simplicity than for ornament.

The closing sentence of the paragraph, following the prin-
ciple of climax, is quite apt to derive a certain roll and momen-
tum from previous sentences; in which case it is somewhat
long, often periodic, and forms, indeed, the cadence of the
paragraph. This is especially noticeable in impassioned and
oratoric language. An exception to this elaborated structure,
sometimes adopted to excellent effect, is the apothegmatic
ending : a terse and pithy short sentence gathering into one
statement the gist of the idea which has been expanded in the
sentences preceding.

Examples. — i. Both the short opening and the longer closing sen-
tence are so common as hardly to need a quotation here ; see, for example,
the paragraph from Macaulay on p. 359, above.

2. The apothegmatic close may be illustrated from Burke, with whom
it was a favorite : —

" But power, of some kind or other, will survive the shock in which
manners and opinions perish ; and it will find other and worse means for

1 De Quincey, Levana and our Ladies of Sorrow, Works, Vol. i, p. 241.

THE PARAGRAPH. 379

its support. The usurpation which, in order to subvert ancient institutions,
has destroyed ancient principles, will hold power by arts similar to those
by which it has acquired it. When the old feudal and chivalrous spirit of
Fealty, which, by freeing kings from fear, freed both kings and subjects
from the precautions of tyranny, shall be extinct in the minds of men, plots
and assassinations will be anticipated by preventive murder and preventive
confiscation, and that long roll of grim and bloody maxims, which form the
political code of all power, not standing on its own honor, and the honor
of those who are to obey it. Kings will be tyrants from policy when sub-
jects are rebels from principle."1

III. KINDS OF PARAGRAPHS.

The different kinds of paragraphs that evolve themselves in
the course of a composition may be explained, for the most
part, as modifications of the typical scheme already given,2 —
these modifications rising naturally from the claims of brevity,
or from the amount of detail to be disposed of. In other
words, instead of crowding the whole treatment of a given
topic into one paragraph, we may choose to make it more
manageable by giving only a section at a time, or by condens-
ing part or all to an outline. This sectional treatment, in the
paragraph, is analogous to the punctuation of a composita sen-
tence by periods instead of semicolons,3 and has the similar
justification of lightness and point to commend it.

The following kinds of paragraph may here be noted.

The Propositional Paragraph. — This kind comes nearest to
filling out the type, being controlled in all its course by a topic,
or quasi proposition, at the beginning, and giving enough of
explication to make a fairly rounded sum. Considered as a
section of the type, it may be regarded as the topic followed
out at least through the first stage, and left ready for further
amplification.

1 Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, p. 91.

2 Compare above, pp. 366, 367.

8 Compare preceding chapter, pp. 318 and 326.

380 COMPOSITION.

Example. — The following propositional paragraph has the somewhat
exceptional interest of propounding its topic in stages, as may be seen by
comparing the first and the third sentences. This is not the same as the
double topic, denned on p. 363, above.

" History, at least in its state of ideal perfection, is a compound of
poetry and philosophy. It impresses general truths on the mind by a vivid
representation of particular characters and incidents. But, in fact, the two
hostile elements of which it consists have never been known to form a per-
fect amalgamation ; and at length, in our own time, they have been com-
pletely and professedly separated. Good histories, in the proper sense of
the word, we have not. But we have good historical romances, and good
historical essays. The imagination and the reason, if we may use a legal
metaphor, have made partition of a province of literature of which they
were formerly seised per my et per tout ; and now they hold their respective
portions in severalty, instead of holding the whole in common." 1

It will be noted that all the amplification given here is of the nature of
definition, and belongs thus to the first stage of the type.

The Amplifying 2 Paragraph. — This kind of paragraph rep-
resents the middle section of the type, its office being to par-
ticularize or amplify some statement made previously, or to
enumerate the details of a description or narrative. It is the
peculiarity of this kind of paragraph that the subject is not
definitely expressed, at least within its limits, but is gathered
from the general bearing of the whole ; and the structure has
merely to devise such plan as will make the most lucid and
logical arrangement of coordinate facts.

Example. — The following paragraph immediately succeeds the one
last quoted, and will be recognized as merely an amplification of the same
topic. The two antithetic sides of the topic determine its plan : —

" To make the past present, to bring the distant near, to place us in the
society of a great man, or on the eminence which overlooks the field of a
mighty battle, to invest with the reality of human flesh and blood beings
whom we are too much inclined to consider as personified qualities in an
allegory, to call up our ancestors before us with all their peculiarities of
language, manners, and garb, to show us over their houses, to seat us at

1 Macaulay, Essay on Hallani's Constitutional History, beginning.

2 The word amplificatory, if it were not so unwieldy, would be perhaps the term
to use here.

THE PARAGRAPH. 381

their tables, to rummage their old-fashioned wardrobes, to explain the uses
of their ponderous furniture, these parts of the duty which properly belongs
to the historian have been appropriated by the historical novelist. On the
other hand, to extract the philosophy of history, to direct our judgment of
events and men, to trace the connection of causes and effects, and to draw
from the occurrences of former times general lessons of moral and political
wisdom, has become the business of a distinct class of writers."

The paragraph succeeding this in the essay carries on the amplification
still another step by proposing and detailing the simile of map and picture
which has been quoted on p. 78, above.

The Preliminary Paragraph, and the Transitional Paragraph. —

Strictly speaking these are hardly to be regarded as paragraphs,
consisting as they generally do of one or two sentences merely ;
but their office in the whole composition is too important to be
omitted from the list of kinds at the writer's disposal. Pointing
out the landmarks, the connecting links, they are naturally of
greater use as the subject-matter taxes the mind more; they
serve, in fact, like the short sentence in the paragraph, as
points of definition and departure.

By a preliminary paragraph is meant a paragraph that in a
condensed way lays out what is to be treated in the one or
several paragraphs succeeding ; this it does either by stating
merely the theme, or by giving some main heads of plan.
Considered in relation to the type, it may be regarded as
singling out for statement merely the bare topic or merely
the outline, and leaving all the amplification to be made later.

By a transitional paragraph is meant a paragraph introduced
between principal divisions of a discourse to mark the close of
one and leave the reader ready to take up another. It relates
to what has gone before, as the preliminary paragraph relates
to what is to come. Not infrequently the two kinds are united
in one ; sometimes also a transitional paragraph is immediately
followed by a preliminary.

Examples. — 1. Of preliminary paragraph. The following sentence,
printed as a paragraph, lays out a considerable section of discourse: —

382 COMPOSITION.

" In explaining to you the proceedings of Parliament which have been
complained of, I will state to you, first, the thing that was done ; next, the
persons who did it ; and, lastly, the grounds and reasons upon which the
Legislature proceeded in this deliberate act of public justice and public
prudence."1

2. Of transitional paragraph. The following sentence closes one divi-
sion, while the next paragraph, of which the beginning is here quoted, goes
on to the next : —

" So far as to the first cementing principle.

" The second material of cement for their new republic is the superiority
of the city of Paris ; and this I admit is strongly connected with the other
cementing principle of paper circulation and confiscation. It is in this part
of the project we must look," 2 etc.

3. The two in one. The following, standing in the middle of a long
essay, both marks the end of a preceding treatment and announces the
manner of a new one : —

" We begin, like the priest in Don Quixote's library, to be tired with
taking down books one after another for separate judgment, and feel
inclined to pass sentence on them in masses. We shall therefore, instead
of pointing out the defects and merits of the different modern historians,
state generally in what particulars they have surpassed their predecessors,
and in what we conceive them to have failed."3

4. Transitional followed by preliminary : —

" These illustrations of Aristotle's doctrine may suffice.

" Now let us proceed to a fresh position ; which, as before, shall first be
broadly stated, then modified and explained. How does originality differ
from the poetical talent ? Without affecting the accuracy of a definition,
we may call the latter the originality of right moral feeling.

" Originality may perhaps be defined,"4 etc.

Alternation of Kinds. — By the best writers the same care is
taken to secure variety in paragraphs as in sentences ; and this
variety is obtained by analogous means. Most natural and
frequent is the alternation of length ; short or medium-sized
paragraphs setting off and relieving the longer ones. Closely
connected with this is the alternation of thought, by which a

1 Burke, Speech to the Electors of Bristol, Select British Eloquence, p. 300.

2 Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, p. 232.
8 Macaulay, Essay on History, Essays, Vol. i, p. 409.
4 Newman, Essays Critical and Historical, Vol. i, p. 20.

THE PARAGRAPH. 383

lighter or more concrete paragraph is made to relieve one of
more severe or closely reasoned nature. Making occasional
division between propositional paragraphs and paragraphs of
detail or amplification is a great help to this ; it serves to keep
the thought from being too uniformly strenuous. Finally, —
in proportion to the difficulty of the thought, frequent interme-
diate paragraphs of summary or transition should be intro-
duced ; they furnish the necessary connecting-link between the
single paragraphs as a developed topic and the plan of the
whole composition.

II.
INVENTION.

" The otiose, the facile, surplusage : why are these abhorrent t(
the true literary artist, except because, in literary as in all other art
structure is all-important, felt, or painfully missed, everywhere ? —
that architectural conception of work, which foresees the end in tht
beginning and never loses sight of it, and in every part is conscious
of all the rest, till the last sentence does but, with undiminished
vigor, unfold and justify the first — a condition of literary art, which
... I shall call the necessity of mind in style." — Walter Pater.

BOOK IV. INVENTION IN ITS
ELEMENTS.

As soon as the foregoing study of style had reached beyond
the consideration of mere processes to the stage of completed
products, a new aspect of the work came into view ; rudi-
mentarily in the sentence, in much more palpable guise,
though still subordinate, in the paragraph. To the problem of
manner, the inquiry how to word, or color, or emphasize the
thought already in hand, we began to add the inquiry what
new thought we must supply in order rightly to set off, or
round out, or push on to its conclusion, the thought we had ;
we were thinking of such things as added clauses, and explana-
tory details, and contrasts. This was the problem of matter
asserting itself ; the question of gathering thoughts as related
thoughts, and not merely as the verbal clothing of thoughts.
Thus with the first finished expression of thought there began
in its essential principle the endeavor to find and systematize
thought, that is, invention.

This inventive effort, subordinate thus far and as it were
under the surface, is henceforth to take the lead. We are to
work from the starting-point of matter rather than of man-
ner. This it is, mainly, that distinguishes the coming from
the preceding study ; we are approaching not so much a dif-
ferent thing as the same thing from a different point of view.
Our inquiry will lead on to a broader scale of working; but
its germinal principles are already in hand, waiting merely
for further application. Questions of style, therefore, are not

3*7

388 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

yet and never can be out of the account ; they come up con
tinually, though in ancillary rank, because a work of inventior
can never make itself complete without the support of style.

Definition of Invention. — In its rhetorical or literary appli
cation, invention is the organization of thought, according tc
its nature and object, into a coherent and inter-related forn
of discourse.

Note. — The initial act of invention, the original discovery of the
thought, is too individual to be within the scope of a text-book or a course
of instruction ; besides, we can hardly regard real invention as beginning
until to the original conception there is applied a process of organization,
that is, of verifying, sifting, and selecting for ulterior disposal. It is in the
various stages of organization, of working up thought to a completed form
and effect, that invention centres.

This definition may be practically elucidated from the ana-
logue that most readily comes to mind, mechanical invention ;
speaking in whose terms we may say, invention, in rhetoric,
is the devising of a literary apparatus to do certain determi-
nate work ; employing thereto whatever enginery of form —
descriptive, narrative, expository, argumentative — will most
fitly effect its purpose, and making it ready for whatever motive
£bwer of style will give it vigor and result. It calls for all
the founding and framing, all the accurate adjustment and
interworking of parts, all the skilled calculation of instrumen-
talities and effects, which characterize a well-designed work-
ing tool or machine. This is its ideal, as workmanship.

On this, as a kind of vertebrate structure, is moulded all
the higher artistry of literature. Whether it appear as plot
or as plan, as order inductive or deductive, in the baldness of
logic or in the splendor of poetic portrayal, the invention of
a work determines its solid substance, its permanent value,
its basis of consistency and power.1

1 " Whether in poem or novel, invention, broadly speaking, makes the plot. It makes
the outline of the story : it thinks out the course of the events : it sets the scenes. It re-
solves, in short, on what shall happen." — Macmillari's Magazine, Vol. lvi, p. 275.

CHAPTER XII.
APPROACHES TO INVENTION.

Invention has just been described as if it were a kind of
handicraft, an affair of practical design and workmanship.
This it eminently is, to one who is actually engaged in it. It
has become so. The writer has subdued his vague and
fugitive meditations to the dictates of order and proportion.
While still the literary artist, and all the more such for this,
he has as it were put on workday clothes and become an
artisan. In so doing he has but done what all artists, how-
ever inspired their genius, must do. It is necessary that the
art of letters be pursued in this workmanlike way : its integ-
rity as an art, and the fulness and steadiness of the artist's
powers, depend upon it.

What is true of other arts is true of invention in this
respect also : it has its apprenticeship, a perpetual appren-
ticeship we may indeed call it, in which the workman is learn-
ing the secrets and mastering the processes of his craft. Nor
is this all. Further back it looks, to that initial point when
the artist, prompted by native bent, chose this calling rather
than some other, and found that the primal aptitude, the
most vital element of all, was already in his blood and brain.
Of these things we must take account in rhetorical study,
because important deductions flow from them ; especially
for those, as for instance journalists and clergymen, who are
called on statedly for some form of literary activity.

These approaches to invention, as seen in natural abilities,
and as provided for in the helps and habits that go to call
forth and promote it, the present chapter will discuss.

389

390 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

I. THE SENSE OF LITERARY FORM.

There is a certain way of looking at one's work in the large,
of realizing it, even before it is ciphered out, as a rounded
and articulate whole, which the writer ought to note and take
advantage of. The perfected result, in fact, follows lines
already in the writer's mind, the inventive process being
mainly to disentangle these from irrelevancies and give them
free individual course. A trait this, hard to describe, but its
presence or absence is the deepest thing we feel in contem-
plating a piece of literary art ; as an endowment of the author
we call it, somewhat vaguely, a sense of literary form, and
illustrate it from the analogy of the sculptor who sees the
statue in the stone.

The Starting-Point in Natural Bent. — The native sense of
literary form is as common, and as quickly recognized, per-
haps, as is mechanical inventiveness ; though not so generally
do men realize what it means. In every community may be
found men who can relate an adventure with such choice of
telling points, or make a public speech with such force and
clearness of plea, that hearers are tempted to think a mere
stenographic report would suffice to make it literature. Such
ability is the initial point of authorship ; whatever achieve-
ment it attains is built on this. Individual it is, and therefore
of various kinds and degrees. The only way to legislate for
it is to tell a man to be himself, — a duty, indeed, which in its
demands on self-discipline, gives a man enough to do in a
lifetime of training.

But below what is individual there are traits of natural
inventiveness that we need to recognize as common to all
who in any way are endowed with it. Two such traits may
here be mentioned.

i. First of all, it is a natural ability to grasp facts and
ideas not as isolated or vagabond but in combination, as

APPROACHES TO INVENTION. 391

helpers or as goals to other facts or ideas. To such a mind
no thought is inert or unrelated ; small or great it is a vitalizing
element in a system, is on its way to a sum of effect. So the
story is told or the speech made, crudely it may be and lacking
in the artificial touches of craftsmanship, but with the master-
lines already plotted out, and with a movement under com-
mand. This is not the same as deep thinking or industrious
research, though it may use these ; rather it is the active
genius which shapes their results from a dead aggregation
into a living organic work.

2. But a spontaneous constructive faculty is only one half
of natural invention. The other half is equally significant, —
its implicit recognition of the mind of others, and conformity
to their mental ways. The ingeniously arranged body of
thought may after all suit itself to no one but the maker ; for
others it may be eccentric or abstruse. The man whose utter-
ance rouses attention and interest has a tact to find and
evoke their thinking ; he looks from their point of view, uses
their capacity, becomes as it were their mouthpiece in saying
what they feel but lack ability to put in words. The inven-
tive mind recognizes instinctively that it takes two to effect
an interchange of thought and feeling ; and his care, while
clear in his own thinking, is to make sure of the other.1

1 In the following passage this trait of natural invention is described. " I spoke
to him [Peter Stirling] once of a rather curious line of argument, as it seemed to me,
which he was taking in a case, and he said : ' Ogden, I take that course because it is
the way Judge Potter's mind acts. If you want to convince yourself, take the
arguments which do that best, but when you have to deal with judges or juries, take
the lines which fit their capacities. People talk about my unusual success in winning
cases. It 's simply because I am not certain that my way and my argument are the
only way and the only argument. I 've studied the judges closely, so that I know
what lines to take, and I always notice what seems to interest the jury most, in each
case. But, more important than this study, is the fact that I can comprehend about
how the average man will look at a certain thing. You see I am the son of plain
people. Then I am meeting all grades of mankind, and hearing what they say, and
getting their points of view. I have never sat in a closet out of touch with the world
and decided what is right for others, and then spent time trying to prove it to them.' "

Ford, Peter Stirling, p. 406.

392 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

The Superinduced Discipline. — As thus described, this natural
inventive bent, with its outcome in luminous form and tactful
adaptation, would seem to be a very fair outfit for authorship.
By many it is so taken. It is a very prevalent idea that a
person so endowed has only to let himself be borne on, as
cleverness and fluency dictate ; and discipline is very com-
monly disparaged, as if its tendency were to congeal native
genius into the conventional and academic. What is the
truth of the matter? The inventive impulse is indeed the
cardinal element, and it must be a law to itself. But at this
initial point it is only an instinct, not yet in the steady lead-
ing of judgment, critical insight, wisdom. It is uneven and
unbalanced ; with no governing power to guarantee against
crudeness or extravagance or dulness. Its strong flights are
an accident ; so also are its failures. It is not yet established
by habit in the equable movements of the mind, but has to
wait upon moods and moments of inspiration. And if it goes
on untrained, it runs into froth or antics of treatment, and
soon its vein runs out altogether.

This is no more of an indictment than may be brought
against every native aptitude or talent. It holds in painting,
in music, in popular games, in handicraft. From a run-wild
affluence of nature the talent has to be developed by attention
to itself into a mastered self-respecting art,1 the more of an
art as it more unerringly realizes the obscure aim of the original
inventive impulse.

Here, then, is suggested the office of discipline. It is not to
supersede, or artificialize, or sophisticate the native powers.
Its effect is to obviate such tendencies rather; and, while the
powers remain a law to themselves, to make them acquit them-

1 " Art, indeed, in the sense in which we are now using it, that is, to denote the
pains bestowed by the artist on his work, is merely nature giving attention to itself.
It is nature in a mood of self-consciousness. Thus, to speak like a mathematician, it
is limited to yield a higher power of nature." — Wilkinson, A Free Lance in the
Field of Life and Letters, p. 200.

APPROACHES TO INVENTION. 393

selves as a real law, not as whim or anomaly or accident. Dis-
cipline, if the paradox may be allowed, works the natural talent
into nature; it supplies the staying and steadying power, the
equable consent of will, judgment, and habit by which alone
nature can do and maintain its best. More than this, it brings
to light many powers previously latent, or only dimly conscious
of themselves ; so that many who had not thought of author-
ship have by its evoking influence found some rewarding field
of literary work open to them.

The Response to Occasion. — Under the general term occasion
may be included all the circumstances that attend the devis-
ing of a literary work, — circumstances inhering in the sub-
ject, the public, and the question of timeliness.

i. Different minds are set astir, inventively, by different
causes ; this is an individual matter for which we cannot
legislate. To some a subject, with its resources of thought
and illustration, is a sufficient inspirer; others, not so given
to analytic study, are called out into fluent utterance by an
audience or the touch of the public; still others are moved to
have their say by the ideas that are in the air. In most cases
one of these influences will predominate, and the product will
take substance and flavor accordingly. It is one of the results
of discipline, however, to make the writer mindful of all
three ; and that literary work will be most vital and solid
which derives inspiration from all, which will wait, if need be,
till all these influences have contributed. It is an important
thing thus, before a work is begun, to have an i7ispiration
point from which its life starts, and from which the mind
works with energy.

2. On this inspired impulse, acting with the individual bent
and aptitude, is based the specific sense of literary form, —
the sense, in the first place, whether the idea conceived is
adapted to vital utterance — has the real movement of litera-
ture— or is only dead truism and commonplace. This is an

394 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

important point to discover, as important as is the finding of
a telling subject for pictorial art.1 Then further, this quick-
ened sense must be instinctively aware what form suits its
conception, — whether poem, sketch, essay, story, or oration;
and conversely, what treatment of the conception will fit the
form. Ideas shape themselves subtly to these forms, and are
more or less misshapen out of their type of discourse. To
take the natural instinct for these things and make it self-
justifying and self-rectifying is the deepest work of systematic
discipline.

Lines of Inventive Talent. — Apart from the specific forms
of discourse, to be discussed later, two main lines in which
inventive skill works may here be defined, as a kind of chart
to those, especially untried writers, who are looking over into
the realm of letters and questioning whether their endowments
will entitle them to enter.

i. The invention which, answering most nearly to the type,
centres in the creation of some new product of thought or
imagination, opening as it were a new region in life, may be

1 " There should be a word in the language of literary art to express what the
word,' picturesque' expresses for the fine arts. Picturesque means fit to be put into
a picture ; we want a word literatesqae, ' fit to be put into a book.' An artist goes
through a hundred different country scenes, rich with beauties, charms and merits, but
he does not paint any of them. He leaves them alone ; he idles on till he finds the
hundred-and-first — a scene which many observers would not think much of, but which
he knows by virtue of his art will look well on canvas, and this he paints and preserves.
Susceptible observers, though not artists, feel this quality too ; they say of a scene,
• How picturesque ! ' meaning by this a quality distinct from that of beauty, or sub-
limity, or grandeur — meaning to speak not only of the scene as it is in itself, but also
of its fitness for imitation by art ; meaning not only that it is good, but that its good-
ness is such as ought to be transferred to paper ; meaning not simply that it fasci-
nates, but also that its fascination is such as ought to be copied by man. . . . Literature
— the painting of words — has the same quality, but wants the analogous word. The
word 'literatesque' would mean, if we possessed it, that perfect combination in the
subject-matter of literature, which suits the art of literature. ... As a painter must
not only have a hand to execute, but an eye to distinguish — as he must go here
and there through the real world to catch the picturesque man, the picturesque scene,
which is to live on his canvas — so the poet must find in that reality, the literatesque
man, the literatesque scene which nature intends for him, and which will live in his
page." — Bagehot, Literary Studies, Vol. ii, pp. 341, 343, 345.

APPROACHES TO INVENTION. 395

called the originative invention. It is what the Greeks had
in mind in naming a supreme author ttoitJt^?, a maker, from
which name comes our word poet, but which in their sense of
it covered all works of the distinctively creative imagination,
— poetry, romance, the drama. It is in these forms of dis-
course that we oftenest see this kind of invention embodied ;
and though it may reveal all degrees, or almost no degree, of
originality therein, still, independent discovery and setting-
forth, the making of a new work in kind as in order, is its
motive and aim. In our day the prevailing output of this line
of invention is fiction.

Note. — The great works of literature which have survived their age
and become classic have been works of the creative invention ; and their
writers, whether the works are much read at first hand or not, rank as
leaders of thought, — as " the born seers* men who see for themselves and
who originate." That the roll of such names should be headed by Homer,
^schylus, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, ranking by the side of great creative
thinkers, Plato, Aristotle, Bacon, Newton, Darwin, does not shut out the
lowlier names, of those who can by some creative stroke open a new tract
of thought or imagination; Anthony Trollope, who added a new shire to
England, is in his way a worker in this line.

2. The invention which, taking the great thoughts that in
their original form may have been too massive or too concen-
trated for the general mind, works these out interpretatively
into plainness and lucid order, may be called the organizing
invention. The products of this kind of work may or may not
seem to the inventor original ; but as it centres in making things
clear and plain, it is mainly in the organism, the elucidation,
that the originality consists. And if this is not the greatest
or most permanent work, it is the most widely useful ; it serves
its own generation, if not the next, in responding to great
movements of thought and giving them wider currency and
diffusion. In its grades of usefulness, too, it may show all
degrees, from a masterly body of proportioned and illus-

396 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

trated thought to a masterly handling of tabulated views and
statistics.

Note. — The thinking that at beginning found few who were able to
compass it, as for instance the great theories of Newton and Darwin,
becomes common schoolboy property in the age succeeding ; the great
movements of research and philosophy get eventual access to the common
mind ; and this by the work of lecturers, orators,' writers of text-books,
treatises, and monographs, — men whose faculty is clearness of sight and
lucid balance of thinking. These are abilities to which in some degree
every one may aspire. And the exercise of some such faculty of common-
sense invention is what is called for in the great bulk of casual papers that
ordinary men have occasion to write.

II. THE SUPPORT FROM SELF-CULTURE.

Apprenticeship to any art goes deeper than learning the use
of tools and methods of work. The worker's whole mental
attitude must become habituated to the spirit of his pursuit.
The carpenter evolves a carpenter mind ; the musical composer
moves in an atmosphere of musical thought ; the painter sees
schemes of color and pictorial combination everywhere. In
the great field of literature, too, this is so. There must be
evolved the literary mind, conscious of its high calling, and
with all its faculties united and concentrated on the large art
of expression. This is more than being expert in knacks and
methods ; it is a dominating current of life ; it has to be fed
and supported by systematic self-culture.

At this point a disadvantage of our work has to be noted
and allowed for. In the period while the text-book is studied,
this self-culture can only be pointed out, or at most begun.
What is to be said about it, therefore, must look mostly to the
future. The college course is too brief and crowded, and too
early placed in life, for the student to establish that controlling
inventive and literary current which is essential. Experience
of life, the grip of problems and events at first hand, is want-

APPROACHES TO INVENTION. 397

ing. Besides, the whole temper and attitude of undergraduate
study is in the direction of taking in truth, rather than of giving
it out in individual mintage and conviction. Yet this latter is
the very essence of invention. The writer, in his chosen line",
must lead, must teach, must guide, must take the initiative ;
and to this the prevailing bent of his being must be trained.1
To accomplish this in school days is uphill work, not to say
impossible. The most that can be done here is to point out
the way, and suggest a line of self-culture which may some
day be vital.

The following aspects of self-culture are here treated not
for their importance in themselves, though this is real and
great, but for their relation to literary invention.

The Spirit of Observation. — This, as applied to the world
in general, outer and inner, is practically identical with what
is called the scientific spirit. It is the spirit that appreciates
and appropriates facts, just as they are ; first of all by the
keen and accurate use of the senses, the fundamental means
of gathering truth. But the same spirit is also quick to see
the relations of facts, the vitalizing of facts into truths ; it is
as keen to gather material from life as from nature, from
books as from life. So what we here define is the scientific
spirit in the. large sense, with all the enthusiasm, the sense of
values, the accuracy, the verifying caution, that characterize
the born observer. Everything thus gathered has its uses in
the fabric of literary presentation ; but, what is of more import-
ance, the habit of keeping mind and senses open to facts keeps
the mind open to activity, to self-reliant energy, to origination.

1 " The first duty of any man who is to write is intellectual. Designedly or not,
he has so far set himself up for a leader of the minds of men ; and he must sec that
his own mind is kept supple, charitable, and bright." — STEVENSON, The Morality
of the Profession of Letter ■/, Works, Vol. xxii, p. 283.

398 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

The following aspects of this spirit of observation lie near-
est to, and are the greatest supports of, invention.

Alertness of Mind. — The beginning of the observing spirit
is nothing difficult or profound ; it is simply being awake,
being interested ; and that means letting the mind, the active,
curious, discriminative thought, be at work behind the eye in
what is seen. By its attitude of interrogation and ready
welcome of facts the mind sets up a vitalizing energy
which is the first impulse to luminous and ordered use of
knowledge.1

Every one has his own sphere in which his mind is alert.
Whatever pertains to his own pursuit or calling, for instance,
has immediate appeal to him, so that he becomes an expert
observer therein ; the mechanic in evidences of manual skill,
the farmer in soils and crops, the general in topography and
strategic points. Every new interest, too, creates its province
of specialized observation and keenness ; witness, for instance,
how soon a bicyclist acquires an expert knowledge of roads,
and an amateur photographer of effective points of view.
What these limited examples suggest applies, in a degree
bounded only by the writer's breadth of mind, to the un-
limited field of literature. It is the motive of his calling to
make use of a universal special sense, by which the world is
laid under contribution for enriching materials, and through

1 " A faculty of wise interrogating is half a knowledge. For as Plato saith,
'Whosoever seeketh, knoweth that which he seeketh for in a general notion; else
how shall he know it when he hath found it ? ' And therefore the larger your Antici-
pation is, the more direct and compendious is your search." — Bacon, Advance-
ment of Learning, Book ii, p. 271. — " When I speak of a waiting mind, I do not
mean a non-affirmative, non-energized, Mr. Micawber sort of mind, waiting for some-
thing to turn up, but a mind intent, a mind that goes to its windows and looks out
and longs, and thrusts forth its telescope to find something. A mind thus intense,
investigatory, and practically beseeching, amounts to a tremendous loadstone in the
midst of the full-stocked creation — full-stocked with the materials of thought — and
when this or that comes into the windows of such a mind it is stamped by that
mind, and specialized to its uses, with a threefold vigor, and all the incomes thus
explicitly stamped are the more explicitly germane to each other, and visibly of one
species." — Burton, Yale Lectures, p. 50.

APPROACHES TO INVENTION. 399

which the rudimentary work of invention, the finding of the
germs of new ideas, "gets itself done without effort.

Diversity of Interest. — Not only to be mentally alert, but
to be alert to a great variety of things, to have the percep-
tions trained in many lines of observation, to be not narrow
and partial but having a wide horizon of outlook and taste,
— this is where the literary observation is called upon to go
beyond the scientific. It thus becomes a perception at once
specialized, in its keen penetrativeness, and universal, in its
readiness to weigh new elements of the problem and make
fair allowance for new points of view.1

Following are some of the good results of this diversity of
interest, in forming the literary temperament.

i. To have an eye for many and various kinds of fact is
equivalent to having a mastery of so many points and angles
of view ; and this mastery greatly deepens and enriches any
single aspect of things. For no fact is isolated, no truth is
known as it is until its relation with its whole realm of truth
is understood. The interests of specialization itself, of getting
a true comprehension of any one fact, demand that the power
to observe and sympathize be varied and liberal.2 \

2. To cultivate diversity of view is to cultivate the ability
to see through many men's eyes ; and this, whatever it may

1 Of an eminent master in eloquence and letters this is said : " He habitually fed
himself with any kind of knowledge which was at hand. If books were at his elbow,
he read them ; if pictures, engravings, gems were within reach, he studied them ; if
nature was within walking distance, he watched nature ; if men were about him, he
learned the secrets of their temperaments, tastes, and skills ; if he were on shipboard,
he knew the dialect of the vessel in the briefest possible time ; if he travelled by
stage, he sat with the driver and learned all about the route, the country, the people,
and the art of his companion ; if he had a spare hour in a village in which there
was a manufactory, he went through it with keen eyes and learned the mechanical
processes used in it." — Mahie, Essays on Books and Culture, p. 27.

2 " Everything but prejudice should find a voice through him ; he should see the
good in all things ; where he has even a fear that he does not wholly understand,
there he should be wholly silent ; and he should recognize from the first that he has
only one tool in his workshop, and that tool is sympathy." — Stevenson, TJie
Morality of the Profession of Letters, Works, Vol. xxii, p. 283.

400 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

do for science, is essential to literature, which by its funda-
mental genius exists for no one class but for all. It is only
on one side that invention looks toward its subject ; the other
side, looking toward readers, must take such measures of cul-
ture as will meet and satisfy their varieties of taste and tem-
perament. This is a matter not only of education but of
literary conscience.

3. To have a varied and flexible view is to have such con-
trol over one's judgments of things that the ground of esti-
mate is not likes and dislikes, not any form of prejudice, but
a recognition of what is intrinsic in each. It is thus that
the literary observer learns trustworthy discrimination ; he
likes what is likable, in men and things, and makes just allow-
ance whether he likes or not. A tolerant spirit this ; some-
times mistaken for a spirit too weakly swayed by some new
idea or fashion ; but in truth it does not imperil, rather it
greatly promotes while it deeply grounds, a tempered posi-
tiveness of judgment.1 I

The Verifying Spirit. — In literature as truly as in science,
the observation of fact, by which we mean in the large sense
getting at the real truth of things, has to be made not more
in the glow of discovery than in the spirit of caution. At
every step results need to be tested and questioned, held back
for verification or change, until the forward step can be taken
in full certitude. This applies equally to the fact observed
and to the way of relating or expressing it. It is merely giv-

1 " Cultivate universality of taste. There is no surer mark of a half-educated
mind than the incapacity of admiring various forms of excellence. Men who cannot
praise Dryden without dispraising Coleridge ; nor feel the stern, earthly truthfulness
of Crabbe without disparaging the wild, ethereal, impalpable music of Shelley ; nor
exalt Spenser except by sneering at Tennyson, are precisely the persons to whom it
should in consistency seem strange that in God's world there is a place for the eagle
and the wren, a separate grace to the swan and the humming-bird, their own fragrance
to the cedar and the violet. Enlarge your tastes, that you may enlarge your hearts
as well as your pleasures ; feel all that' is beautiful — love all that is good." —
Robertson, Lectures and Addresses, p. 797.

APPROACHES TO INVENTION. 401

ing the control to the sturdy principle, Be sure you are right.
This engenders a habit of self-rectification, of keeping one's
head in the rush and onset of utterance, of falling back on
sound sense and the plain appearance of things, which in the
long run is the one guarantee of solid and surviving literary
work.

In somewhat greater detail we may note here the following
good effects of this verifying spirit.

i. It tempers and regulates the constructive faculty. In
the glow of discussion or creativeness a writer is often tempted
to say a thing not because it is true but because it is striking.
The observation has been made, and the result looks plausible,
but it has not been subjected to the necessary verification.
The writer thus, whether his thought is correct or not, is
primarily seeking not to make a truth prevail but to gain
attention to a performance, or perhaps to fill out an ingenious
plan ; and this motive of work, sooner or later, is sure to
work harm. With the verifying impulse in control, however,
the solid basis of appeal is the established fact ; and what-
ever freedom of plan or utterance there is — and the impulse,
rightly employed, is no check to this — obeys the fact as a
structural and emotional law.

2. It keeps the work close to the first-hand and common-
sense view of things, the natural color. Learning has a way,
unless regulated by the touch of earth, of piling itself up in
pedantic, bookish, top-heavy systems remote from human in-
terests. It is a tendency to be guarded against in all special-
ized study. The corrective to this the verifying spirit has a
large hand in- supplying ; for its appeal is not more to the
highly sublimated than to the every-day and universal observ-
ing powers.1

1 " We heard Webster once, in a sentence and a look, crush an hour's argument
of the curious workman ; it was most intellectually wire-drawn and hair-splitting,
with Grecian sophistry, and a subtlety the Leontine Gorgias might have envied. It

402 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

3. It creates the valuable ability to hold judgments in
abeyance, to tolerate uncertainty on subjects wherein verifi-
cation is not possible. The merit of youthful thinkers is
vigor and directness ; their fault, to be overcome by ripening
and deepening judgment, is rash and one sided conclusion,
made on insufficient ground. To such minds it is a pain, and
seems a sin, to be in want of decision or of definite opinions ;
if seems to indicate weakness and vacillation. But there are
occasions where just this incertitude is strength ; because
there are questions that cannot be settled by the first look of
things, or perhaps cannot be. settled at all. The verifying,
patient, testing spirit is tolerant of such questions and waits
for the grounded answer, or failing this, is not afraid to say,
I do not know.1

II.

Habits of Meditation. — The ability to think out the design
of an individual work of literature is based upon a previous
training, deep and long continued, wherein the writer's mind
has become disposed and steadied to that kind of work. The
name we give to this deeper and habitual mental activity is
meditation; meaning thereby not only concentrated thought

was about two car-wheels, which to common eyes looked as like as two eggs ; but
Mr. Choate, by a fine line of argument between tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee, and a
discourse on the ' fixation of points ' so deep and fine as to lose itself in obscurity,
showed the jury there was a heaven-wide difference between them. ' But,' said Mr.
Webster, and his great eyes opened wide and black, as he stared at the big twin
wheels before him, ' Gentlemen of the jury, there they are, — look at 'em ' ; and as
he pronounced this answer, in tones of vast volume, the distorted wheels seemed
to shrink back again into their original similarity, and the long argument on tie
'fixation of points' died a natural death." — Parker, Golden Age 0/ American
Oratory, p. 221.

1 " During this training in accurate observation, the youth should learn how hard
it is to determine with certainty even an apparently simple fact. He should learn to
distrust the evidence of his own senses, to repeat, corroborate, and verify his observa-
tions, and to mark the profound distinction between the fact and any inference, how-
ever obvious, from the fact,"— Eliot, American Contributions to Civilization^. 215.

APPROACHES TO INVENTION. 403

but along with it a deliberate continuance of application
until the subject has assumed a seasoned form and order in
the mind. It may be called, in a word, the trained power of
letting a thought grow. Meditation is just the opposite of
revery, with which superficial thinking sometimes confounds
it. In revery the mind, being passive, does not direct its
course of thinking but is borne on vaguely by it. In medi-
tation, while the course of thinking seems to be, and is, fol-
lowing its own evolution, the mind, intensely active, is all
the while working it out in ordered process. The power to
do this has to be developed by self-culture, until the mind
which to begin with was wayward and unsure, or more or less
the prey of revery, has acquired by degrees a firm grasp, a
penetrative and concentrative insight, a general sense of
mastery over its workings.

Meditation, when itself a habit, has at its basis certain
elemental habits which become a kind of exaction or necessity
of the thinking mind. The following are the most practically
operative of these.

The Habit of seeking Clearness. — It is often remarked that
the first presentation of a subject to the writer's thought is
apt to be cloudy ; a vague idea which must gradually be
worked from haziness to clearness. This plight of the sub-
ject, at whatever stage of meditation, is by no means a neces-
sity. The gist of the whole matter may flash upon the mind
at once ; and if the mind has formed a habit of seeking clear-
ness it will. By this is meant a habit, applied to every
acquisition of thought as it comes, of patiently thinking away
its indistinctness and intricacy until its central significance
stands out plain. The neglect to do this in any case does just
so much to fasten a vague tendency on the mind. The stern
holding one's self to it in every case does so much to make
the effort superfluous ; it establishes the exaction of clear
thinking as a second nature. And when this is so it is

404 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

increasingly the fact that subjects of thought come to mind
not cloudily but in clear-cut nucleus and outline.

One good effect of this habit is to keep the writer from
being content with hasty or ill-considered work. The de-
mand for clearness becomes to him a kind of conscience, for-
bidding him either to let his own mind be imposed upon by a
show of profundity in the subject, or to let any half-ripened
work leave his hands. It forbids lazy or sloppy or hurried
thinking.

A second good effect of this habit is to keep the writer
from attacking subjects that are beyond him. This is a fre-
quently noted tendency of young writers. Easily carried
away by the surface-ideas of a great subject, they soon find
themselves committed beyond their depth, and all they can
do is merely to retail truisms. The grounded resolve to be
clear, to subject every thought rigorously to the test of plain-
ness, does much to keep thinkers in their own sphere.1

The Habit of seeking Order. — This is correlative to the habit
just mentioned ; being a distributive act while the other is
concentrative. That is, it seeks to view subjects analytic-
ally ; determining their parts and dependencies, noting what
is principal and what subordinate, seeing them in a kind of
perspective, wherein effect stretches out from cause and con-
crete details from central principles. This ability, like the
other, has to be developed from individual effort to habit, by
being applied to all subjects of thought, and not merely to the
themes on which one is to write. And when by habit the
mind is thoroughly set to tolerate no disorder, every subject
that comes falls into spontaneous order, and all collateral
thought, and memorized experience, and reading even the
most casual, ranges in relation with it.

1 A suggestive indication of a clear-seeking mind is the note appended to Mil-
ton's unfinished poem on The Passion : " This subject the Author finding to be
above the years he had when he wrote it, and nothing satisfied with what was begun,
left it unfinished."

APPROACHES TO INVENTION. 405

Of good effects of this habit, one is, that the planning of
material becomes less and less a drudgery or a seeming arbi-
trary process, and more and more a natural growth, wherein
both the subject and the organizing mind are following the
lines of their own self-movement. Not that planning becomes
less work ; it is likelier to be more ; but the work is deeper
and more central, less like shallow ingenuity, more like a
necessary evolution.1

A second good result of this habit, is that the writer is thus
guarded against the superficial tendencies of rapid writing.
Rapid composition is not necessarily shallow, any more than
careful and labored authorship is ipso facto thorough. Both
qualities are really qualities not of the composition but of the
mind. It is the trained intellect, intolerant of distorted or
dislocated thought, that contributes most to permanent and
satisfying work. With this antecedent culture once established
the ability to write rapidly, which is easily enough acquired,
has a sound basis to build upon, while its bad tendencies are
forestalled and avoided.

The Habit of seeking Independent Conclusions. — This habit
it is which is the foundation of originality in writing. It
may not lead to better views of truth than are already extant ;
it may not lead to new conclusions, in the absolute sense ; its
virtue is that by it the writer does his own thinking and
reaches his own conclusion. Whatever he gives to the wrorld
has become, for him, a discovery ; it is vitalized by his mind,
and takes form according to his vision and personality.
This, and not the absolute new, is what is meant by origi-

1 Of the essay whose plan is studied below, p. 438, the author writes: " My lit-
erary ;ind critical essays are by-products of my desk, written for the most part to
ease the strain of my regular and, so to say, professional writing. They are, there-
fore, not thought out by plan before being composed, but form themselves under my
hand as I turn and return to them from time to time. I am the more pleased that
this one should turn out to possess something so nearly like a systematic plan." —
Private letter from Professor WoodrffW Wilson,

406 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

nality ; this, as an energizing attitude of mind, is the writer's
justification for approaching the subject at all.

An accompaniment of this habit, and a result, may here be
noted.

Along with this habit the writer needs to develop confi-
dence in his own well-considered conclusions. This is very
hard for young writers. They are too timid to strike out fof
themselves, and are influenced out of or into any view by the
last article they have read. A modesty not unbecoming in
those who are just beginning to think ; it is, however, so far
to be overcome that the writer shall have a well-grounded
view of his own which he cannot lay aside for any man's
assertion. To have such confidence is not necessarily to be
opinionated or to fail of deference to others ; it is simply to
trust, as the thing he knows best, in the integrity of his own
mind's working.

The result of this habit and of its attendant confidence is
that one's work carries the note of conviction and authority,
and this not a seeming but real. It may contain a view
identical with another author's, yet not be an echo or a copy
it may use the results of reading, yet be so digested and
vitalized .that all is transformed into a new product. The
new personality, the new individual range and color, give it
value ; and this is the birthright of every one who thinks and
writes.1

Avails of Sub-Conscious Mental Action. — Given a mind trained
as above described, with habits steadied to trusty and per-

1 " I insist upon original effort ; that, rather than reading to begin with, for
another reason. In every mental act there are two factors involved : the thinking
mind, and the external materials which it manipulates ; and men may be classified
as original and productive thinkers, or as copyists, plagiarists, and forms of echoj
according as they dominate this their material or are dominated by it. But the
most ignominious person in all the world, if so that he have one remaining spark, or
last nicker, of manliness in him, desires to be a man of supreme generative force and
not an echo ever ; and this he can secure only as in the handling of subjects he thinks
with all his might before he reads." — Burton, Yale Lectures, p. 50.

APPROACHES TO INVENTION. 407

manent pace, and much may be left, much had better be left,
to that strange power which the mind has of working sub-
consciously. In many cases when the train of thought is
started, instead of punishing the brain to worry out the whole
problem, the best way is to leave it to itself, and when next
the subject is recalled a remarkable advance and clearing-up
will be found to have taken place. This is a phenomenon so
normal and constant that writers of experience become aware
at what point to lay aside effort and leave their cerebration
to itself. To do so is not the same as idling Over thought ;
it cannot consist, in fact, with laziness ; it is rather a wise
division of labor between the conscious and the sub-conscious
processes.

This is mentioned here not as a curiosity of literary inven-
tion, but for its practical value. Writing that has been hur-
ried and dashed together, with only the intense and active
brain concerned in it, is raw, unripe, unquiet; writing wherein
the avails of the sub-conscious working have been utilized
both shows and has a peculiar quality of finish, deep-founded-
ness, repose, — this because the whole mind has been engaged
on it, and produced a growth rather than a manufacture. It
does not pay, then, to hurry the preliminary work of litera-
ture; the only result is to leave the deepest half of it undone.1

1 " Nothing should be done in a hurry that can be done slowly. It is no use to
write a book and put it by for nine or even ninety years ; for in the writing you will
have partly convinced yourself ; the delay must precede any beginning ; and if you
meditate a work of art, you should first long roll the subject under the tongue to
make sure you like the flavor, before you brew a volume that shall taste of it from
end to end." — Stevenson, The Morality of the Profession of Letters. Works, Vol.
xxii, p. 285. — " Moreover, I had thought I might mention this curious little fact : —
that a topic selected on Monday, say, snugged away in the mind, and let alone
there, absolutely, for three or four days and nights ; not being brooded and worked
over at all, I mean ; on examination at the end of that time, will be found to have
sprouted into a very considerable affair — your mind has seen to that unconsciously
— you have had nothing to do with it — and (what is stranger still) experience
proves (my experience does) that if you had been sound asleep all those four days,
some sprouting would have come to pass. Scores of times after I have gone to bed
Friday night I have made a little stir in me, and got my next Sunday's sermon

408 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

Yet on the other hand, this is the very opposite of deserting
the subject ; rather, the mind, moving all the while in the
region and atmosphere of it, has learned the art of what is
called mulling, — the deliberate yet deeply active waiting for
its own processes to mature.

Avails of Casual Topics in Meditation. — Of immense value in
all literary invention, but of special advantage to those who
have to write statedly and frequently, is the habit of keeping
several topics of meditation rounding and ripening at once.
The mind, having thus definite centres and rendezvous of
thought, disposes of any casual topics that come in its way,
and is continually attracting more. Such a habit, which with
a little care may be easily formed, endows the writer's whole
sphere of observation with greatly increased significance.
Whatever he reads, even casually, is almost sure to contain
something that either clusters round some nucleus of thought
already in his mind, or, no less frequently, establishes a new
thought-centre therein. And when the time comes to write,
even though it be a pressing emergency, he will not be at
loss for subject and seasoned material ; the occasion has been
forestalled by his every-day habit of stowing away topics in
mind and applying to them his odd moments of thought,
observation, and reading. It is merely a question, so to say,
of picking the subject that is ripest.

III.

Ways of Reading. — The ways of reading here recounted
have in view one definite end, invention ; and this not so
much any specific method of invention — "reading up," as the
phrase is, for some theme — as the general power of invention.

decided on, and then on waking Saturday morning have noticed a marked advance
in me of that topic — it has swollen — it has put out feelers and drawn in correlative
thoughts — very likely it is all ready for me to begin writing on." — Burton, Yale
Lectures, p. 60.

APPROACHES TO INVENTION. 409

Reading as a feeder of the originative mind, we may call
our subject. As such the reading presupposes and logically
follows the mental activities already exerted in the spirit of
observation and in habits of meditation ; that is, reading,
to be a feeder of invention, must have these as its basis and
vitalizer. This is the prime requisite.

Creative Reading. — By this phrase, borrowed from Emerson,
we may name the way of reading that the writer should
cultivate as securing and including all. By it is meant simply
that alertness of mind already described,1 applied to books,
and set in the direction of invention.2 It is an attitude in
reading wherein the mind is at once receiving the matter of
the book and active toward giving it out again recoined,
reselected, applied to a new product and purpose. It submits
to the inventive lines of the author, yet is vigorously engaged
on the same subject-matter, following inventive lines of its
own, or if adopting his, making them in turn its own property
and way of thinking.3

This inventive attitude in reading is what distinguishes
the scholar from the book-worm, the thinker from the idle
absorber of print. It is the increasing multitude of this
latter class of readers that makes the present enormous out-
put of literature a doubtful blessing. Reading may easily
become a mental dissipation. It is such to the book-worm
mind, charged to the brim with printed matter, crammed with
undigested loads of book-lore, an insatiable absorber, with

1 See above, p. 398.

2 Here is recalled a remark once made to the present writer by one of his Leipzig
teachers, Professor Friedrich Delitzsch. " A German professor," said he in a tone
of playful exaggeration, " never reads a book except with the design of writing
another."

►ne must be an inventor to read well. As the proverb says ' He that would
bring home the wealth of the Indies must carry out the wealth of the Indies.' There
is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor
and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold
allusion. Every sentence is doubly significant, and the sense of our author is as broad
as the world." — Emerson, The American Scholar^ Works, Vol. i, p. 94.

410 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

neither impulse nor ability to make its stores useful, a mine
inert, benumbed, deadened by unassimilated knowledge. Ii
is such just as deplorably to him whose mental food is books
not worth remembering, — vapid fiction and froth of the day.
which he reads not to retain but to make a means of killing
time. The evil of such books, when one is enslaved to them,
is that they kill more than time : they kill the memory, the)
kill interest in solid matters, they kill all grasp and sharpness
of thought. It is this kind of reading to which we are here
concerned to enforce a contrast.

This inventive attitude — the mind active superseding the
mind passive, — while it is indispensable to the writer, is oJ
untold value to all who read. If it does not produce new
books, it gives the reading itself infinitely more worth, by
weaving it in with living thought. And it is the scholar's
special privilege to make this attitude so thoroughly a second
nature that the creative bent may invigorate all his reading,
however rapidly or even cursorily it is carried on, or for I
whatever purpose. That is what his scholarly mind is given ;
to him for; that is the true object of culture.1

Three ways of creative reading may here be specified. '
They are suggested by the following familiar passage from
Bacon: "Some Bookes are to be Tasted, Others to be Swal- J
lowed, and Some Few to be Chewed and Digested : That is, j
some Bookes are to be read onely in Parts; Others to be read
but not Curiously ; And some Few to be read wholly, and

1 " Books are the best of things, well used ; abused, among the worst. What is
the right use ? What is the one end which all means go to effect ? They are for
nothing but to inspire. I had better never see a book than to be warped by its
attraction clean out of my own orbit, and made a satellite instead of a system. The
one thing in the world, of value, is the active soul. This every man is entitled to;
this every man contains within him, although in almost all men obstructed, and as f
yet unborn. The soul active sees absolute truth and utters truth, or creates. In
this action it is genius ; not the privilege of here and there a favorite, but the
sound estate of every man." — Emerson, The American Scholar, Works, Vol. i.
p. 91.

APPROACHES TO INVENTION. 411

with Diligence and Attention."1 Let us take up these sug-
gestions in inverse order.

i. Reading for Discipline. — This is mentioned first, because
it is the practical means, so far as external culture can do it,
of inducing that creative current in the mind which is neces-
sary to make any way of reading effective. As the object
implies, it is reading carried on as a habit and self-culture ;
reading pursued with the express purpose of feeding and
stimulating inventive power.

If the question rises, Why read for discipline ? the answer
is suggested, not dimly, by a consideration of the two objects
that in our day govern wellnigh the whole field of general
reading. Men read either for information, as represented by
the newspaper, or for pastime, as represented by current fic-
tion ; and in both cases not only is the manner of reading
rapid and cursory but the matter ordinarily provided is such
as bids for such perusal, — light in weight, catchy, and of
transient interest. A third way of reading is needed, then, for
this if for no other reason : in order to put on the brakes, to
stay with a book long enough to get some flavor of culture, to
get below those surface points which merely catch a casual
attention, to the undercurrents of thought and ideal and inven-
tion that have swept in the deep personality of the author.

The question what to read for discipline thus very nearly
answers itself. Not the superficial but the searching books,
the works of creative invention and of great men ; more
especially the books that are recognized as the great master-
pieces and vital springs of literature. Not many such books,
but few, and one at a time ; not necessarily or preferably
bulky books, but those wherein much is said, and especially
much large personality revealed, in little space.2 The specific

1 Bacon, Essay Of Studies.

2 It was literature of this fibre that Milton had in mind.-literatuie such as he
himself would create, when in his Areopagitica he wrote: " For Books are not abso-
lutely dead things, but doe contain a potencie of life in them to be as active as that

412 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

books of this sort must be left for the reader's peculiar ben
to find; in the broad field of our seasoned and classical litera
ture the choice is large. That it is real — that large disci
plinary and quickening value exists in works of this sort — i
shown by the way the English Bible, and Shakespeare, am
Dante, and Milton, to say nothing of more modern writers
have reverberated through our literature, moulding and steady
ing generations of thought and style.

The answer to the question how to read for discipline fall:
into line with the rest. When you have chosen a work thai
rises out of the centre of a deep life, read until you are ir
possession of its inner secret. That is what disciplinar)
reading amounts to ; the method is but devising detailed
means to this. Read both rapidly, to get the grand sweep ol
it, and with slow studiousness, to resolve phrase and allusion,
and to fathom the involvements of thought and imagination.
Read analytically, until all is resolved into its elements ; read
synthetically, until all the elements are vitally joined again ;
read so many times that the spirit and substance of the work
become a part of your own mind's tissue. And the result
will be that the writer's power of invention will to some de-
gree be infused into you ; having submitted thoroughly to his
mind's working, you will find your own mind braced and stimu-
lated to work inventively. This is the true meaning of read-
ing for culture, so much talked of. Few pursue it far enough,
or patiently enough, to know what is in it ; but for those who
do, it is worth all the time and meditation devoted to it.

The question when to read for discipline must not be dis-
missed as unimportant. For the thinker and writer such read-
ing should be the custom and habit of every day. It has thus
something of the nutritive power of daily food. By authors

soule was whose progeny they are ; nay they do preserve as in a violl the purest
efficacie and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. ... A good Bookfll
is the pretious life-blood of a master spirit, imbalm'd and treasur'd up on purpose to
a life beyond life."

APPROACHES TO INVENTION. 413

ancient and modern it has been pursued especially as a means
of giving the mind tone and glow preparatory to composition!
A short season of meditation over the pages of some con-
genial author serves to transport the reader, as it were, into
the literary atmosphere, wherein his mind begins, by the.
discipline it has imbibed, to strike out inventive lines for
itself.1

2. Compendious Reading. — This way of reading, for which
in our studious age there is great occasion, has in view the
rapid gaining of large and general masses of information, the
mastery of whole books and whole tracts of theory or story,
as a kind of background or setting for the writer's own more
restricted department of work. It supplies the kind of all-
round culture that Bacon had in mind when he said, " Read-
ing maketh a full man." The books that are thus read
rapidly and in the large are the practical treatises : history,
science, philosophy, criticism, as also travels and descriptive
works, and for a less strenuous object, works of fiction.
Such books leave in the reader's mind a large survey of their
subject-matter ; they represent the basis of liberal information
to which his specialty of study is more or less intimately
related and by which it is oriented.

Rapid reading can be done well only by an alert and
quickened mind ; and this is most practically secured by a
previous thorough habituation to disciplinary reading. Let

1 " Let it be added . . . that the method in question is supported by the practice
of many eminent authors. Voltaire used to read Massillon as a stimulus to pro-
duction. Bossuet read Homer for the same purpose. Gray read Spenser's Fairie
Queene as the preliminary to the use of his pen. The favorites of Milton were
Homer and Euripides. Fenelon resorted to the ancient classics promiscuously.
Pope read Dryden as his habitual aid to composing. Corneille read Tacitus and
Livy. Clarendon did the same. Sir William Jones, on his passage to India.
planned five different volumes, and assigned to each the author he resolved to read as
a j^uirle and an awakener to his own mind for its work. Buff on. made the same use
of the works of Sir Isaac Newton. With great variety of tastes, successful authors
have generally agreed in availing th ! this natural and facile method of

educating their minds to the work of original creation." — PHELPS, Men ami Books,
P- 3°3-

414 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

the mind become fully accustomed to noting the finer anc
deeper elements, and compendious reading, instead of bein£
the surface skimming that such reading too generally is, wil
yield much of its depth at a glance. This is an accomplish
ment well worth working for.

As thus trained for, compendious reading, more specifically
defined, is the application of the acquired ability to steer the
mind, in reading, straight from or through details and color-
ing to the central current of thought. It requires, as it also
progressively develops, first, grasp of the vital thread of dis-
course ; secondly, an instinctive discrimination between what
is principal and what subordinate, so that in the idea retained
each may assume its fitting rank and emphasis ; and thirdly,
ability to think in the large, to range by a kind of interpre-
tative imagination over the whole field at once and realize its
relations and perspectives. All this, needless to say, does not
come of itself ; it is the result of a self-discipline as specific
as language or mathematics.1

The grand practical object for the writer, in thus reading
compendiously, is the large effect it has upon his own inven-
tive work. Whatever his immediate task, he should read

1 The previous discipline, the studious basis, is here insisted on because without it
rapid and compendious reading is a source of harm rather than good. It may be-
come only another form of that mental dissipation already described on page 409.
De Quincey thus analyzes its effect : " An evil of modern growth is met by a modern
remedy. Every man gradually learns an art of catching at the leading words, and
the cardinal or hinge-joints of transition, which proclaim the general course of a
writer's speculation. Now it is very true, and is sure to be objected — that, where so
much is certain to prove mere iteration and teasing tautology, little can be lost by
this or any other process of abridgment. Certainly, as regards the particular sub-
ject concerned, there may be no room to apprehend a serious injury. Not there, not
in any direct interest, but in a far larger interest — indirect for the moment, but the
most direct and absolute of all interests for an intellectual being, the reader suffers a
permanent debilitation. He acquires a factitious propensity, he forms an incorrigible
habit of desultory reading. Now, to say of a man's knowledge that it will be shal-
low or (which is worse than shallow) will be erroneous and insecure in its founda-
tions, is to say little of such a habit : it is by reaction upon a man's faculties, it is by
the effects reflected upon his judging and reasoning powers, that loose habits of
reading tell eventually. And these are durable effects. Even as respects the minor

APPROACHES TO INVENTION. 415

more broadly and deeply than the subject in hand calls for.
Too many when thus it is their duty to read up for a subject,
reid, so to say, merely from hand to mouth, — that is, only so
far as is to be utilized for immediate reproduction. Such
reading is sure to betray itself ; it is undigested and crude.
Besides, the custom is narrowing, fatal to originality, and pre-
cludes improvement. By reading always broadly and deeply,
the writer masters not only his immediate subject, but such
an ample sphere of thought and fact as contains the material
and suggestion of many allied subjects.

The value of such broad reading, as compared with the
more restricted way, is twofold. First, the immediate subject
is better understood and more satisfactorily presented, when
in the work of research its whole department of thought, with
its limits and relations, has been studied. Although only one
small aspect may be given, what is presented takes a depth
and color due to the writer's knowledge of its connections
with more comprehensive thought ; there is a pervading sense
of reserve power and fulness. Secondly, by reading beyond
and below each subject the writer stores and stimulates his
mind for future work. He is taking measures to maintain a
reserve of resources. There is thus no danger of his writing
himself out, because the fountain, though drawn from continu-
ally, is kept full by the very preparation for drawing ; while
the depth and quality of his knowledge improve steadily with
use. His literary work is thus made a liberal education.

3. Reading by Topics. — This is reading with your own
theme in mind to control ; the theme serving as a loadstone

purpose of information, better it is, by a thousandfold, to have read threescore of
(looks (chosen judiciously) with severe attention, than to have raced through the library
of the Vatican at a newspaper pace. But, as respects the final habits acquired, habits
of thinking coherently, and of judging soundly — better that a man should not have
lead one line throughout his life, than have travelled through the journals of Europe
by this random process of ' reading short.' " — Dli Quincev, Essay on Style, Works,
Vol. iv, p. 2oy.

416 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

to attract congenial material, and as a sieve to select or leave
The material thus gathered seasons and strengthens your owi
thinking, and fills up the gaps. Of its utility in the genera
outfit of a writer, there can be of course no question.

The books that require such consultation by topics are th(
works of exhaustive research, yet whose subject-matter $
more in the form of materials for literature than the finishec
literature itself ; such are specialized treatises, reports, docu-
ments, and in general the original sources of minute and
thorough information. To read such works through would be
a positive disadvantage, to say nothing of the labor. Their
subject-matter is in too diffuse and chaotic form for that.
They are therefore merely to be interrogated on those par-
ticular points which in other reading, or in the process of
thought, have revealed themselves as in need of greater ful-
ness or corroboration.

The art of reading by topics is the art of finding what one
wants, and disentangling it, and letting the rest go. A simple
seeming process this, yet requiring a mind very sharply
trained and intensely directed. It calls for the possession,
first, of a defined idea of what is wanted ; secondly, a swift
instinct to select out what will serve your purpose ; and
thirdly, quickness to expand suggestions, turns of phrase,
hints, implications. It is but one more application of the
sharpness of mind engendered by disciplinary reading and
meditation, the habit of ready and accurate analysis.1

1 " I have been surprised many times, after I have diligently gestated a subject
myself and then have started out into my library for the say-so of other men on that
subject, to notice not merely in what a lightsome and expert way I handled them,
but also in what a swift facility I utilized their many volumes; — sometimes one
glance will answer — and if I encounter a book wherein the entire subject is opened -
out profoundly and in a complete treatment, considerable portions of the book I
catch up with a touch and go, and the denser parts cannot very long delay me.
This sounds boastful, but it is not. Almost any man may make the experiment for
himself. And I advise you all to make it — and to keep making it so long as you
live." — Burton, Yale Lectures, p. 51.

APPROACHES TO INVENTION. 417

The man who reads by topics has an eye for the make-up
of books. From an index, or table of contents, or preface, he
can guide himself unerringly to the main or minor point that
gives the consultation present significance. He comes natur-
ally, by this ability, to have touch with bibliographical matters,
to know what is reputable in book-making, to have acquaint-
ance with publishers and their specialties, to discriminate
between the authoritative and the second-hand in authorship.
In addition to the knowledge he already possesses he comes
insensibly to be aware where knowledge is to be looked for
and found.1 He is at home in a library, and can accumulate
rapid information from a large number of books as easily as
from one. Books, in short, become his companions and
familiar friends.

IV.

Disposal of Results. — As one's meditation and reading
become more quickened by the inventive spirit, some method
of preserving results is naturally sought. This leads to the
taking of notes, the devising of indexes for reference* the pre-
serving of cuttings, the keeping of commonplace books, and
the like. The tendency to such things, and the ability to
carry on a system once adopted or to profit by what is thus

1 " No sooner had we made our bow to Mr. Cambridge, in his library, than John-
son ran eagerly to one side of the room, intent on poring over the backs of the books.
Sir Joshua observed, (aside), ' He runs to the books, as I do to the pictures : but I
have the advantage. I can see much more of the pictures than he can of the books.'
Mr. Cambridge, upon this, politely said, ' Dr. Johnson, I am going, with your pardon,
to accuse myself, for I have the same custom which I perceive you have. But it
seems odd that one should have such a desire to look at the backs of books.' John-
Son, ever ready for contest, instantly started from his reverie, wheeled about, and
answered, ' Sir, the reason is very plain. Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a
subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it. When we
enquire into any subject, the first thing we have to do is to know what books have
treated of it. This leads us to look at catalogues, and the backs of books in libra-
ries.' " — Uoswell, Life of Johnson (G. B. 1 1 ill's edition;, Vol H, p. 417.

418 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

preserved, is so largely a matter of temperament that nothing
whatever can be prescribed for all. Some read and meditatt
for immediate use, and carry their stores of information ir
more or less digested form in memory. Others trust much tc
accumulated materials and to systematic storing. As in style
and planning, so here, every one must evolve his own besl
way, from his powers and habits of mind.

Some practical remarks may, however, here be given, espe-
cially to indicate the relation of these customs to invention.

Taking Notes. — Two objects, in the main, are had in view
in the taking of notes : the recording of suggestions that
come to one's own mind at times when finished composition
is not practicable ; and the securing, in abstract or in par-
ticular data, of material read or heard. This latter material
may best be cared for in the same system as are references and
citations, to be mentioned presently ; it belongs like them to
the unworked data of the writer's mind. The former, the
record of one's own thoughts, is of special value as a stimulus
and practical support to one's processes of thought ; a tangible
means of developing the habit of seeking clearness and order.
A note-book may thus be a workshop, where lines of thought
have their germination and first shaping, and where currents
of obscure meditation run themselves clear. Of course one
is continually outgrowing such a record ; but this is one great
element of its value, — the inventive mind is thus kept in
a state of growth, and has something to outgrow.

An important feature of utility in the taking of notes is
this : notes should not be heedlessly taken, or consist merely
of catchwords. They should have all the finish that the time
permits. Then if they are referred" to afterward, they will be
formed enough to yield their original flavor without painful
and doubtful supplementing from memory; and further, the
very putting of them down will have marked a step forward in
composition. It is doubtful if an original note which does

APPROACHES TO INVENTION. 419

not represent the author's best is worth preserving ; doubtful,
too, if the inventive ardor will continue to attend it if the
note-taking evinces less than the high water mark of his think-
ing at the time.

References and Citations. — The keeping of some 'kind of
index rerum, for fugitive notes, references, and citations, is
sure to commend itself at some time in a writer's career; and
not unlikely many starts and failures may be made before the
writer finds his most practicable method. This perhaps can-
not well be avoided, nor is it necessarily a reproach. It will
probably be found, however, that the method that works best
at last is the simplest. To plan for as little machinery as
possible has the best promise of success ; even though the
plan adopted may be very imperfect, as compared with others
advocated.

Whatever the system, the success of it depends mainly on
the writer's closeness of touch with it. For this reason the
kind of material preserved is most fitly such as belongs to the
writer's most specialized sphere of study, the kind of fact and
truth with which his mind is most constantly occupied.

Commonplace books, on account of the labor of transcrib-
ing passages, are much more liable than any other undertaking
to be discontinued. The same value attaches to them as to
indices rerum ; there is the necessity also of keeping in touch
with them, — in fact, more good comes, probably from the
making of them than from their contents when they are
made. For this reason no one can make a commonplace book
for another ; it must have something of the personal quality
of a journal intime. Like a note-book, a commonplace book
is speedily outgrown ; but likewise it may when wisely used be
made a practical instrument. Its value consists in keeping
one's readings vital ; and this is undeniably great.

CHAPTER XIII.
THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE.

Before entering upon the discussion of the specific forms
that invention may adopt in literary discourse, we need to
note the typical framework, or inventive system, that, with
whatever modifications, exists under all forms. The principle
of this has already been anticipated on the smaller scale of
the single paragraph ! ; it remains here to consider the prob-
lems and procedures that come into view when the field of
operations is broader.

In two opposite directions invention, as a devising act,
works to bring its design to pass. It is first concentrative ; it
thinks its material inward to one controlling, comprehensive
proposition, which we call the theme. Then, secondly, it is
distributive : from this theme as a centre it thinks outward
along the various lines and radiations of the thought, — in
other words, it makes the outline or plan. So much for the
inventive process in its severe narrow sense. But, having
proceeded thus -far, this same devising activity, still at the
work of rounding its design, takes to its aid imagination,
emotional glow, and the sense of style, in the finishing process
called amplification. Here at last the artistic enterprise is
complete ; invention and style, no longer separate, have
united in one vital yet ordered product.

These three stages of work determine the articulation of
the present chapter.

1 See The Paragraph in Structure, pp. 364 sqq., above.
420

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 421

I. THE THEME.

Definition. — The theme, or thesis, which in some form under-
lies the structure of every literary work, may be briefly defined
as the working-idea of the discourse.

As a working-idea, that is, as something to serve for point
of departure and nucleus of organism, the theme is not a thing
caught up arbitrarily ; it gets its status as' the result of a vigor-
ous mental process of concentration and packing, reducing
what at first was vague and diffused from nebulous to orbic
form. When, therefore, it is thus determined, it has derived
suggestion from a large tract of thought ; it is, in fact, the
whole discourse reduced to one comprehensive proposition.
When the body of thought has been called in from its diffused
state to this organic centre, and not before, it is in condition
for working.1

As related to the Subject. — What is thus concentrated must
begin somewhere, must have something to condense. This
something from which the theme is derived presents itself to
the mind first in that large and unshaped mass of material
which we call the subject.

The subject, then, may be defined as the material of dis-
course before meditation ; the theme as the phrase or propo-
sition that represents the material after the first stage of
meditation, when the range and bounds of treatment are
determined. Subject and theme stand to each other much
in the relation of class and individual. The theme is not

1 " To give the phrase, the sentence, the structural member, the entire composition,

or essay, a similar unity with its subject and with itself: — style is in the

right way when it tends toward that. All depends upon the original unity, the

vital wholeness and identity, of the initiatory apprehension or view." — Pater,

Appreciations, p. 19.

422 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

a part of the subject, because as an individual it retains all
the traits of its class ; rather it is the whole subject turned
in a certain determinate direction.

Note. — In Cardinal Newman's lecture on Elementary Studies (Idea of
a University, pp. 355-361), there is a very lucid distinction made between what
are here called subject and theme. It occurs in a discussion of a student
essay on Fortes Fortuna Adjuvat (Fortune favors the brave). " Now look
here, the subject [theme] is 'Fortes fortuna adjuvat'; now this is a propo-
sition ; it states a certain general principle. . . . ' Fortuna ' was not his sub-
ject [theme] ; the thesis was intended to guide him, for his own good. . . .
It would have been very cruel to have told a boy to write on 'fortune ' ; it
would have been like asking him his opinion of ' things in general.' For-
tune is 'good,' 'bad,' 'capricious,' 'unexpected,' ten thousand things all at
once, . . . and one of them as much as the other. Ten thousand things may
be said of it ; give me one of them, and I will write upon it ; I cannot write
on more than one."

What this direction, this working thrust of the subject shall
be, may depend on a variety of considerations : its timeliness,
for instance ; its adaptedness to the public for which it is
designed and to the occasion and limitations of treatment ;
the literary form in which the writer chooses to work, — essay,
oration, story, or treatise. Most of all, however, it depends
on the special discovery which the writer has made concern-
ing the subject. He has come to view it in a certain light,
or from a certain point of view ; and the theme is just the
accurate formulation, for his own guidance in treatment, of
the way the subject looks thus viewed. He recognizes, in
other words, that not everything, not every important thing,
can be said about any subject. What is said must be rigor-
ously selected, both for the occasion and in view of the par-
ticulars that belong together. The theme is the principle of
selection, put into such form that the writer can use it as a
point of departure and mental reference.

Thus the theme becomes a point of outlook toward all the
divisions of the discourse, and has the life of it all in crystalliza-

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 423

tion, while also it determines the scale and the selection that
shall control every part. This implies, and ideally requires,
so fine a relation, that in a well-invented paper an analysis
can condense its various stages back into a theme again, and
thus test the unity and mutual consistency of the whole in a
single utterance.

Examples. — This relation of theme to subject may be' illustrated by
taking some standard essays which are well enough planned to bear it, and
reducing them to their nucleus thought.

i. Of Macaulay's Essay on History x the large subject is obvious:
history. So far forth, however, we have no limitation of it, not even enough
to fit its form ; it might be a voluminous treatise on universal history; it
might define history in a few paragraphs. A little examination suffices to
show that Macaulay has in mind a treatment suited to the project that he
was then beginning to cherish of writing a history ; it is his thought on The
Art of Writing History. This restricts the original subject materially,
though as thus stated it is rather more properly a subsidiary subject than
a developed theme ; it still lacks specific direction. On further study of
the essay we find that its whole course conforms to and is controlled by
some such proposition as this : The art of writing history, which,

BEGINNING ANCIENTLY IN PURE NARRATION, HAS WITH ADVANCING
POWER OF GENERALIZATION COME IN MODERN TIMES TO THE OPPOSITE
EXTREME OF PURE PHILOSOPHIZING, HAS NEVER YET PRODUCED A PER-
FECT MASTERPIECE, NOR CAN IT DO SO, EXCEPT BY BLENDING AND
BALANCING THESE TWO ELEMENTS.

2. Professor Woodrow Wilson, writing nearly a lifetime after Macaulay,
has written an essay on the same subject, The Art of Writing History,
though his title is different,2 — an essay which virtually calls a halt to the
extreme reaction against Macaulay's method that prevails in historical
presentation. Its controlling proposition is this : History is not a

RECORD OF ALL THE FACTS : THAT WERE IMPOSSIBLE. IT IS A RECORD

1 Macaulay, Essays, Vol. i, p. 376.

'2 Wilson, The Truth of the Matter, in Mere Literature and Other Essays,
p. 161. By kind permission of the author I am enabled to illustrate various stages
and processes in essay-writing by this essay. The references made to it are: how
the plan grew, p. 405, footnote; its theme, p. 423 ; its title, p. 431 ; its plan, p. 439;
its stages of progress, p. 441 ; its use of an associational law, p. 445 ; its inductive
structure, p. 447; its introduction, p. 453; its conclusion, p. 455; its transition,
P-457-

424 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS

OF SOME OF THE FACTS, SELECTED FOR THEIR SIGNIFICANCE, AND SEl
FORTH IN SUCH ORDER AND COMBINATION, WITH SUCH A TOUCH OB
REALIZING IMAGINATION, WITH SUCH COLOR AND LIFE, AS SHALL CAUSE
THEM, IF POSSIBLE, TO MAKE THE SAME IMPRESSION UPON US THAT
THEY MUST HAVE MADE ON THOSE WHO WERE ACTORS IN THE MIDST

OF THEM

3. John Morley's Essay on Macaulay 2 is a good example of a theme
that seizes an occasion ; it was written in 1876, just before the appearance of
Trevelyan's biography of Macaulay, for which everybody was looking with
keen interest. It was not intended, however, to be at all biographical, but
critical; its object was to deal with that very interest which was so in the
air. The article states its own object in theme form, thus: "To ask
ourselves shortly what kind of significance or value belongs
to Lord Macaulay's achievements, and to what place he has a

CLAIM AMONG THE FORCES OF ENGLISH LITERATURE." This restricts

the subject to a line of treatment suited to the limits of a review article,
and gives it a specific direction.

Significance of Theme as deduced. — As thus deduced from
the subject, the theme is the result of two opposite mental
powers : a large grasp, wherein the writer carries a sense of the
whole range of the subject-matter ; and a vigorous concen-
trative effort, wherein every line and limitation of thought is
represented by some word or shading of expression. The
whole formulation, then, presents perhaps the purest occa-
sion in the whole discourse for that aspect of clearness called
precision3; — an occasion all the purer because the theme is
not made up at all with reference to readers but for the guid-
ance and steadying of the writer himself. The more minutely
accurate this formulation on the part of the writer, the greater
the chance of unity, consistency, and non-distraction of effect
as the reader receives it. The study to bring all the material
under one miniature view has banished whatever is extraneous

1 This statement of the proposition was kindly made, at my request, by the author
of the essay.

2 Morley, Critical Miscellanies, Vol. i, p. 253.

3 See above, pp. 29 sqq.

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 425

to present treatment, and laid out the straight road for the
thought to travel.1

This matter is insisted on here, because so much depends
upon it. Thinking to a theme at the outset, and then stick-
ing with absolute surrender to it when it is once determined,
is the only way to make one's writing accomplish a definite
end. Neglect or carelessness in this one matter is the most
fruitful cause of slipshod and sloppy writing. The flood of
writing that is born and dies, leaving no definite impression
on men, is more than all else the result of that haste or indo-
lence which will not take the trouble to grasp and follow a
theme.

Example of the Process of Deduction. — In the following, which
is the opening paragraph of a sermon, we see the relation of the text to the
theme, and also the whole process of deduction from the narrative of which
the text is a part. The whole is provided also with a title.
Title : Duty not measured by our own ability.2
Text: Luke ix. 13 — " But he said unto them, Give ye them to eat."
" When Christ lays it thus upon his disciples, in that solitary and desert
place, to feed five thousand men, he cannot be ignorant of the utter impossi-
bility that they should do it. And when they reply "that they have only
five loaves and two fishes, though the answer is plainly sufficient, he is nowise
diverted from his course by it, but presses directly on in the new order, that
they make the people sit down by fifties in a company, and be ready for the
proposed repast. Debating in themselves, probably, what can be the use
of such a proceeding, when really there is no supply of food to be distributed,
they still execute his order. And then when all is made ready, he calls for
the five loaves and two fishes, and, having blessed them, begins to break,
and says to them — Distribute. Marvellous loaves! broken, they are not
diminished ! distributed,, they still remain ! And so returning, again and
again, to replenish their baskets, they continue the distribution, till the
hungry multitude are all satisfied as in a full supply. In this manner the

1 As a means of self-discipline in this respect the writer will get no harm from
incurring in some degree the tendency which Joubert confesses of himself: " If there
he a man tormented by the cursed ambition to put a whole book into a page, a
Whole page into a phrase, and that phrase into a word, I am that man."' — JOUB1 R 1 ,
Thoughts^ p. 275.

2 Bushnell, Sermons for the New Life, p. 364.

426 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

original command — Give ye them to eat — is executed to the letter. They
have made the people sit down, they have brought the loaves, they have
distributed, and he at every step has justified his order, by making their
scanty stock as good as a full supply.

" This narrative suggests and illustrates the following important prin-
ciple —

" That men are often, and properly, put under obligation
to do that for which they have, in themselves, no present

ABILITY."

Here the text expresses merely the kernel or lesson of the passage in
which it occurs, and its teaching is made clear by a summary of the whole
narrative, which summary is concentrated upon the lesson. The example
is a more formal deduction of theme than is usual in sermons nowadays ;
but the definiteness with which it directs the discourse to one idea is no
greater than ought to obtain in every discourse, however the statement
of the theme may be concealed.

II.

As related to Form of Discourse. — No form of discourse
can dispense with the theme ; it exists and must be carefully-
determined in all ; but in some forms it exists as it were in
solution, pervading and coloring the whole, while the purpose
of other forms makes necessary a more formal expression of
it.1 In general the theme stands out more in proportion as
the discourse is more of the brain, the thinking power ; it is
more hidden and pervasive as the discourse is more addressed
to the imagination or the emotions. This fact leads to three
distinctions in themes, as related to form of discourse.

i. The diffused or pervading theme belongs predominantly
to description and narration. Least marked in description,
it is perceived through a general congruity of details and style
which gradually builds up in the reader's mind one unitary
and homogeneous character ; this character, so centrally con-
ceived, is the theme. Narration, evolving its idea by means

1 Analogous in this respect to the paragraph, with its different ways of embodying
the topic ; see above, p. 359.

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 427

of concrete events, is working all the while to a large concep-
tion of things, — a truth, a moral virtue, a sentiment, which
is to survive as a total effect of the whole ; this large con-
ception, this total effect, is its theme. In both forms there
must be this focus of consistent effect ; else the story or
description, cheerfully and briskly as it may move, does not
advance but merely marks time.

Examples. — i. Of descriptive theme. In giving account of these
descriptive themes we may best adopt, perhaps, Stevenson's favorite figure
of a key in music. Ruskin's description of St. Mark's, Venice, bewildering
as it is in its richness, is thus keyed consistently to the associated thought
of variegated, discordant human life.1 Stevenson's description of the Oise
in flood is keyed to life and turbulence, and all the details harmonize.2
Shakespeare's description of Dover Cliff is keyed to one characteristic, its
dizzy height.3 Carlyle's description of Silesia is more matter-of-fact, being
keyed to such topographical characteristics as are needed to explain a
military campaign carried on there.4

2. Of narrative themes. Balzac's Pere Goriot follows the very palpable
theme of paternal love as an overmastering and invincible passion. His
Cesar Birotteau follows the idea of simple business integrity which will
take no subterfuges of law. Howells, in his Rise of Silas Lapham, deals
in his way with a very similar theme. Coppee's short story, The Substi-
tute, deals with the theme of self-sacrifice.5

2. The expressed theme belongs to exposition and argu-
ment, forms of discourse in which the reader is conducted
along logical lines, from thought to thought, and so on to a
conclusion of all. In exposition, whose business it is to
explain things, this theme may be expressed in the form of a
phrase or elaborated title, sometimes more fully as the subject-
matter is more abstruse. In argumentation the theme is a
proposition, something like a resolution for debate, and having

1 Ruskin, Stones of Venice, Vol. ii, p. 70.

2 Stevenson, An Inland Voyage, Works, Vol. .xii, p. 59.
;! SHAKB8PEARB, King Lear, Act iv, Scene 6.

4 Carlyle, Frederick the Great, Vol. iv, p. 1.
& Ten Talcs by Francois Coppcc, p. 91.

428 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

a similar object, — to fix an assertion of truth to a definite
conclusion. In both cases a careful formulation of the work-
ing-idea is necessary, both for writer and for reader.

Examples. — i. Of expository themes. In Herbert Spencer's Essay on
The Social Organism, the theme is thus given : " That under all its aspects
and through all its ramifications, society is a growth and not a manu-
facture." 1 Mutton's Essay on The Spiritual Fatigue of the World begins
by a quoted remark on the modern malady of imagination and then says,
" Such a malady of imagination there no doubt is, and it shows itself
in morbid activity ; but this morbid activity is more often, I believe, the
inability to rest which is due to over-fatigue, than the inability to rest
which is due to abundance of life, — the restlessness of fever, not the
restlessness of overflowing vitality." 2

2. Of argumentative themes. It is only necessary to call attention
to the avpwal of principles made in every argument; as, for instance, in
Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America, which sets out, " The propo-
sition is Peace. Not Peace through the medium of War; not Peace, etc.
It is Peace sought in the Spirit of Peace ; and laid in principles purely
pacific." 3 Or Schurz's speech on General Amnesty, which makes this
avowal : " I beg leave to say that I am in favor of general, or, as this word
is considered more expressive, universal amnesty, believing, as I do, that
the reasons which make it desirable that there should be amnesty granted
at all, make it also desirable that the amnesty should be universal."4

3. A peculiar modification of the theme belongs to oratory,
as befitting perhaps the relation of this form of discourse
equally to the intellect and to the emotion. As a working-
idea for an argument or plea, the theme may either be
expressed or more or less diffused ; but in fact this discus-
sion of a subject is not the chief unifying principle. What
makes it an oration instead of an essay is the fact that rather
than a subject it chooses an object, a point to which the
conduct and will maybe adjusted; and this object — which

1 Spencer, Essays, p. 147.

2 Hutton, Aspects of Religious and Scientific Thotight, p. 17.
8 Burke, Select Works, Vol. i, p. 165.
4 Ringwalt, American Oratory, p. 94.

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 429

is generally left unavowed — so absolutely controls the treat-
ment that its whole effect may be summed up in an imperative
precept or dictate.

Example. — Thus, the early preachers said not merely, "The kingdom
of heaven is at hand," but " Repent " ; and this imperative was the real
upshot of their message. The modern statesman, while he labors to con-
vince his audience that this or that view of a public measure is the right
one, throws the whole power of his address into the imperative, " Give
your allegiance, your influence, your vote to this truth."

III.

As distinguished from the Title. — The theme is distin-
guished from the title as inner from outer. The theme is
intended to concentrate the writer's invention ; the title to
attract the reader. The theme creates a unity and organism ;
the title creates an anticipation. Choosing the title, then, is
choosing a name which, whatever else it does, shall make the
most truthful and favorable impression possible.

Characteristics of the Title. — Three considerations may
govern the choice of title ; all present in each case, but
working in various proportions.

i. It must be truthful, that is, as far as it goes it must give
a correct clue to the main idea of the work. This main idea,
however, may present itself in two aspects, and be named
according to the aspect that dominates. As controlling a
course of thought the main idea is didactic ; as controlling
an appeal to motive or taste the emotional idea, that is, the
spirit or animus of the work, may be in dominance. The prob-
lem of the title is to name the aspect in which the supreme
significance of the work centres.

Mi'i.F.s. — r. of titles naming the didactic idea. The Principles
of Sociology ; The Ilist-.ry of European Morals, from Augustus to Charle-
; The Working Principles of Rhetoric; The Conception of Immor-
tality. Such titles as these aim not to allure listless ir;nlcr, hut to guide

430 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

interested ones ; they are concerned not with how the reader feels aboir
the subject but with what he thinks about it.

2. Of titles naming the spirit of a book. A Century of Dishonor i<
the title of a book which gives the history of the United States govern
ment's dealings with the Indians ; the book is evidently an indictment as
well as a history. Put Yourself in his Place is the title of a story
intended to inculcate a moral lesson. The Seven Lamps of Architec-
ture is not a technical treatise; the title directs readers to certain moral
principles that should illuminate and dignify this art. Such titles are
concerned with how the reader shall feel and act as the result of the
book's idea.

2. According to the significance of its theme it must be
attractive ; creating by whatever wording a pleasurable antici-
pation of its contents. This object is sought by bringing into
use all the felicity that may lie in graceful phrase, figure, epi-
gram, subtle allusion or suggestion, and the like. All this,
while still an endeavor to name the work truthfully, is an
endeavor to get at its idea by a way whose indirectness shall
enhance its zest.

Examples. — i. The graceful turning of phrase, which is perhaps the
main object in these attractive titles, is secured in various ways. The Spec-
tator, Mosses from an Old Manse, A Paradise of Dainty Devices, are
figurative suggestions, helped by alliteration. Sartor Resartus, Fors
Clavigera, Suspiria de Profundis, take their phrase from a foreign lan-
guage. Sights and Insights, Buds and Bird-Voices, Pligh-Ways and By-
Ways of Yorkshire, avail themselves of graceful word-play. All 's Well
that Ends Well, A Counterfeit Presentment, Far from the Madding Crowd,
The Choir Invisible, use scraps of quotation or proverb.

2. Often the phrase may convey a graceful or epigrammatic hint.
How to be Happy though Married derives point from the word though.
Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes is made piquant by the word
with, which slyly conveys information of the actual way of travelling.
The Innocents Abroad is a delicate double entendre. The Crown of
Wild Olive, the title appended to lectures on Work, Traffic, and War, hints
at a whole lesson of the book, — the real reward of life's endeavors.

3. A quality of a title so desirable that it may be regarded
as essential is a degree of understatement, or at least of

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 431

tempered suggestion. It should not promise more than the
work will perform ; it is unwisely chosen if it reveals too much
of the coming thought, or as the phrase is "gives the plot
away." On account of this, multitudes of titles consist merely
of proper names, or of some locution whose implication is
remote ; yet even these are chosen with much study of the
sounds and natural associations of words.

Examples. — i. An interesting example of the study given to the name
that should have just the accurate shade of association is described by Sir
Walter Scott in the introductory chapter to Waverley. He contrasts it
with chivalrous names, such as Howard, Mordaunt, Mortimer, Stanley ;
with sentimental names, such as Belmour, Belville, Belfield, and Belgrave ;
then goes on to say, " I have, therefore, like a maiden knight with his
white shield, assumed for my hero, Waverley, an uncontaminated name,
bearing with its sound little of good or evil, excepting what the reader shall
hereafter be pleased to affix to it."

2. Sometimes, as in the case just given, the first title says or intimates so
little that a supplementary title, somewhat more explanatory, is necessary.
In this introduction to Waverley the writer continues his discussion of his
title by saying why, instead of " Waverley, a Tale of Other Days," or
" Waverley, a Romance from the German," or " Waverley, a Tale of the
Times," he chose Waverley, or 'Tis Sixty Years Since. Sometimes the
supplementary title is necessary to fix and elucidate the suggestion of
the first title. Jevons's Principles of Science might be misleading or
blind without the addition, A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method ;
so also The Unseen Universe needs the supplement given to it, Or
Physical Speculations on a Future State.

3. This modest kind of title may nevertheless get at a form of the main
idea. The essay whose theme is quoted on p. 423, for instance, though
on the subject The Writing of History, presents only the non-committal
title The Truth of the Matter ; but how vitally close to the central
thought this is, after all, may be seen from the following sentence at the
outset: "To tell the truth simply, openly, without reservation, is the
unimpeachable first principle of all right dealing; and historians have no
license to be quit of it," and the following summary at the end : " It is thus
and only thus we shall have the truth of the matter : by art, — by the most
difficult of all arts."

432 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

II. THE MAIN IDEAS.

By the process of determining the theme the subject-matter
has been reduced to a working-idea ; it is concentrated, and
turned in a certain specific direction. Not yet is it ana-
lyzed; not yet are its parts coordinated and distributed. This
belongs to the next stage of procedure, the making of the
plan ; which, as the heading here intimates, is the finding
and placing of the main ideas.

It is well to bear in mind here that what we are now
contemplating is only a framework, and that there are minor
ideas, ideas that give the rounding, the life, the color, yet to
come. For any determination of main ideas that we make is
subject to revision in the light of amplification ; changes in
wording, in order, in manner of approach, are likely to suggest
themselves in the greater glow of final composition. None
the less the plan, the cold-blooded order laid down before-
hand, is an invaluable guide as giving the logical mind the
general control ; and this is its purpose : to guide and keep
within bounds, but not to enslave.

The Making of the Plan. — To begin with,* the plan of a
work must be made, and with slow unsatisfactory painstaking ;
it cannot be trusted to make itself. Many young writers,
many fluent writers, mistake here, and think the glow of inter-
est in their subject will make its own plan ; an idea which for
a while their awkward attempts at planning will only seem to
confirm. But in truth this learning to plan is the practical way
of training the mind into the habit of seeking order1; and when
the habit is fully formed, the act of planning, which at the begin-
ning seemed arbitrary and mechanical, will resolve itself into

1 See above, p. 404.

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 433

the discovery of the natural movement of a thought. Plan-
ning must begin awkwardly. It is well for the writer if he
sticks to the work until he is at home in it. He may have
to work through a period more or less wooden ; he may be
tempted to odd or fanciful structures of thought ; he may at
some stage be bitten with the craving for mere ingenuity, —
strange if he is not. But gradually he will reach a point
where with every subject the vision of a plan will rise before
him ; he will come to see it not vaguely but as an articulated
whole ; and by and by he can surrender himself to the natural
working of his mind, because the artistic, the finely logical,
has become nature. When this point is reached, the process
of planning, which to begin with was a separate thing carried
on painfully beforehand, may be united with the final work
of composition, the thought growing in a proportioned and
self-justifying way as guided by an orderly moving mind.

The Skeleton Outline. — This, a list of the main thoughts
drawn up in tabular form, and with the divisions so expressed
and numbered that their relation to the theme and to each
other is clearly determined, is made first of all for the writer's
sake ; but also as a framework, however covered up and dis-
guised, it is no less necessary to the reader, as giving dis-
tinction, balance, and progress to the several stages of the
argument.

Writers should, especially at the beginning of their art,
devote much care to drawing up their plans in skeleton out-
line. All the time devoted to it is in the long run both time
and power gained. When the divisions and subdivisions are
thus displayed in condensed form, they can be revised and
rearranged ; gaps in the thought can be detected and filled ;
obscure and elusive lines of thought can be brought to
light and to book; the whole chain of thought can be
made continuous and symmetrical. This is the practical
object in making the skeleton.

434 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

As to the manner of tabulating thoughts, no rules but
merely a few practical suggestions may be given.

i. Work for simplicity, — that is, make the main divisions
and their subdivisions as few, and at the same time as weighty,
as the subject will bear. To attain this object is worth many
recasts of the plan.

Note. — The old-fashioned sermon custom of making a large number
of propositions, with their portentous numberings of twelfthly and thir-
teenthly, is now discarded ; not because it is uncouth but because it makes
too great demands on the reader's or hearer's thinking powers, and because
it spreads out the thought too minutely. Two or three main stages of the
thought, well supported and articulated, are enough for an ordinary essay
or sermon.

2. A distinct form of notation for each rank of the thought,
— division or subdivision, — also a like margin, should be
adopted in the tabulation. In this way the relative dis-
tances from the central thought, and the parallelisms with
each other, may be kept clear.

Note. — A large variety of letters, numerals, and ways of expression
may become necessary in articulating a complex or extended plan, as, for
instance, the plan of this book. These need not be recounted.

In an ordinary essay the most common and lucid notation, perhaps, is
to put the main divisions in Roman numerals (I, II, III) ; the subdivisions
in Arabic numerals (i, 2, 3) ; and the sub-subdivisions in letters of the
alphabet (a, b, c). Further than these three ranks of thought it is not
ordinarily necessary to push the outline in a work of the limited range of
the essay.

3. The introduction and the conclusion, as they relate not
to the individual stages of the thought but to the whole work,
should not be numbered in the series of divisions. To do so
gives them a false coordination.

Note. — The numbering begins with the body of the work, to which
presumably the introduction supplies the briefest and directest possible
approach. When the introduction is in more than one stage its sub-
divisions may, of course, be marked ; preferably by some notation of its

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 435

own, or by the notation used for subdivision, as small letters of the
alphabet.

4. A single subordinated thought need not be marked by
a numeral or letter ; it is only when there is more than one
division that the mark of distinction has significance, or
indeed that there is division at all.

Note. — When we number a heading 1 wre imply that there is a 2 and
perhaps more numbers to set over against it ; else there is no series, no
advance from thought to related thought.

Landmarks of Structure in the Completed Work. — How far
the skeleton plan should be visible in the completed work is
a point to be determined partly by the nature of the thought,
and partly by the manner of presentation.

Thus the more abstruse the thought is, and the more it
taxes the mind, the greater should be the care that all its
Unkings and sequences should be made obvious by the use
of numerals and other such means. It is in recognition of
this that thought moving in a logical order, as an argument
or exposition, has to show more of its bony structure than
thought moving in a chronological order, like a narrative.
As to manner of presentation, spoken discourse has to be
more scrupulous than written to keep its plan in evidence,
because it has to be gathered from a single hearing. The
much-parodied "fourthly" and " finally my brethren" of old-
fashioned sermons, clumsy though it may be, is a sound
recognition of the requirements of oral presentation.1

1 Of the sermon plan, which may be regarded as fairly typical of the plan of dis-
course in general, Dr. Burton says : " The question is sometimes raised, how plainly
a preacher had better show to his congregation the skeleton in his sermons. I should
say, as a rule, just about as plainly as he shows his own skeleton. If there should ever
come up a serious doubt among a people whether their minister has any skeleton, he
h i'l better show one. A purely unformulated and gelatinous physique in a public
man were di and fitted to give his congregation a painful sense of

trity. . . . Perhaps preachers do well to show their skeletons often enough to
create a general feeling that they always have them. In some instances it may l>e
desirable, for some reason, that the people cany away the sermon in a form to report

436 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

The ideal plan of any course of thought is best patterned
on the analogy of narrative, wherein event rises out of event
as a natural sequence, and there is no sense of a manufac-
tured structure. If the writer so conducts his subject that
his reader may receive it complete and be clearly aware of its
progress without thinking of its framework, he has reached
this ideal. But to this end he must spare his reader all dis-
locations and abruptness ; the turnings and transitions of the
thought must be easily perceivable ; and much care must be
given to preparatory and introductory thoughts. These quali-
ties secured, external marks may then be superinduced merely
so far as they are indispensable.1

The various means used to advertise the stages of the plan
are not arbitrary. They should correspond not only to the
order but to the logical nature and relation of the thoughts
they distinguish. Thus, when numerical recounting is made,
it denotes a series wherein one fact or truth coordinates with
another to make up a sum-total in steps or stages. Where
connective phrases are used, they denote the relative rank of
the added thought, or the kind of sequence. When successive
headings are put in parallel construction they betoken a kind
of likeness, or at least parity of significance, between the
members thus marked. The naturalness of a displayed plan
depends very largely on the choice of connectives with nice
reference to their interdependence, rather than to their func-
tion in a framework.2

upon ; in those, let your plan come forward into unmistakable visibility — the heads
and all the members, italicized and full-spoken. But more often than any way I think it
is just as well to keep your framework a little retired." — Burton, Yale Lectures, p. 58.

1 " It is doubtless unpleasant to have the hard framework of logical divisions
showing too distinctly in an argument, or to have a too elaborate statement of dates
and places and external relations in a romance. But such aids to the memory may
be removed too freely. The building may be injured in taking away the scaffold-
ing."— Stephen, Hours in a Library, Vol. ii, p. 319.

2 The notation of the parts of a plan is in fact merely an extension of the principles
of reference, explicit and implicit, as laid down in the chapter on The Paragraph,
PP- 37°-375> ab°ve.

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 437

It is of importance that headings expressing the same rank
of thought — whether main divisions or subdivisions — should
have a similar form of expression, as related to each other,
and different from the form adopted for other ranks. This is
a valuable means of keeping the reader aware in what part
and connection of the subject he is moving.

Examples. — The following examples were both gathered from an oral
hearing of the sermons here represented, and may be regarded therefore as
good examples of a lucidly indicated plan.

i. A sermon by Dr. Herrick Johnson, on Proverbs xxiii. 23, — " Buy the
truth, and sell it not," — is built on a series of brief affirmations, or proposi-
tions, almost epigrammatic in character.

I. Truth costs ; it must be bought.
II. Truth is worth all it costs.
III. Though truth is worth so much, it is sometimes sold.

2. The following plan, gathered from Rev. Newman Hall's sermon on
The Penitent Thief, Luke xxiii. 42-43, illustrates how divisions and sub-
divisions may employ different forms of notation. The sermon is in two main
divisions, each of which has a heading in the form of a title. Then under
each of these titles is gathered a series of assertions, or propositions, giving
the various lessons of the subject. The second series of subdivisions are
expressed in a parallel construction. The sermon thus abruptly begins : —

" These words bring before us a remarkable illustration both of a sin-
ner's repentance and of the Saviour's grace. Let us consider —
I. The repentance of the dying thief. How indicated : —

1. He manifested reverence toward God.

2. He manifested contrition for sin, and confessed it.

3. He appreciated the goodness of Christ.

4. He bore public witness to Christ.

5. He manifested strong faith.

6. He prayed.

7. He exhibited zealous concern for others.

II. The Saviour's grace. How shown in his promise : —

1. The promise referred to place — 'in Paradise.'

2. The promise related to companionship — ' with me.'

3. The promise related to time — * to-day.' " *

1 This sermon, whose plan was originally taken down from hearing, may be found
in full, Fish, Pulpit Eloqucnct of the Nineteenth Century, p. 830.

438 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

The advantage of such a strongly marked plan for thought of this kind
is obvious. An expository discourse, following the various suggestions
involved in a passage, it does something to create system in a sequence
which otherwise would not be very plain.

II.

Principles of Relation and Arrangement. — It would be
neither possible nor desirable to lay down any universal
or even predominating scheme to govern the ordering of
thoughts in the plan of discourse. Free play must be
accorded, in structure as in style, to that infinite variety
which temperament and occasion dictate, and which is the
life of literature. In dealing with the same subject-matter,
while one man or one set of circumstances may make a certain
order best, another man or occasion may give equal power
to the opposite order.1 All this must be left to the writer.

To say this, however, is not equivalent to saying that the
design of a work is an arbitrary matter, or that it may at
pleasure be lawless. It must in fact obey very imperative
laws, first, in securing a natural and lucid movement of
thought, and, secondly, in maintaining such a rapport with
the reader that he may follow and retain it as if it were his
own mind's working. It must have method and progress
devised with a view to cooperation on his part.

Illustrative Plan. — As a basis of exemplification, here is appended
the plan of Professor Woodrow Wilson's Essay on The Truth of the Matter,
carried out to divisions and subdivisions; which plan may be referred t
point by point as we go along.2

•

1 " Of all homogeneous truths at least, of all truths respecting the same general
end, in whatever series they may be produced, a concatenation by intermediate
ideas may be formed, such as, when it is once shown, shall appear natural ; but if
this order be reversed, another mode of connection equally specious may be found or
made. ... As the end of method is perspicuity, that series is sufficiently regular
that avoids obscurity ; and where there is no obscurity it will not be difficult to dis-
cover method." — Johnson, Lives of the Poets (Pope), Vol. v, p. 85.

2 This plan, though drawn out by me, has been revised and approved by the
author of the essay.

THE COMPOSITION AS A 'WHOLE. 439

The Truth of the Matter.

Introduction: — The ideal of writing history is to make a narrative that
out of the profusion of actual facts so selects the few it can handle
as to convey an impression of the whole truth and of every order of
truth.
I. The defect of the present-day " dispassionate " ideal.

i. While it gives facts, it does not adequately impress truth.
2. And this because it lacks the art necessary to this latter object.
II. The historian's art and its end analyzed.

i. From Macaulay's art, masterly but lacking, we learn that, while our
very narrative must contain in solution a judgment of things, that
judgment must not be imposed from without as an advocate's plea
but evolved from within as a discovered impression.

2. From Carlyle's and Gibbon's lack, respectively, we learn that, while
the impression must be unitary, it must be neither too lurid and
passionate nor too pale and remote.

3. From Green's lack we learn that, while scholarship and artistry
may be in masterly combinatiori, the result will fail unless the plan
and variety of the telling answer to the plan and variety of fact.

III. The supreme requirements that this analysis suggests.

1. That impressions be conveyed in the fresh and living spirit of
impression, not in the severe spirit of scholarly accumulation.

2. That the color and proportion of such impressions be conceived as
they must have come to the actors in the midst of the events.

Conclusion : — This art of telling the truth requires imagination as well
as scholarship, literary art as well as candor and honesty.

1. For Universal Observance. — While therefore entire free-
dom is left for individuality to assert itself in the ordering of
a work, there are certain requisites, deeper than individuality,
that must be had in mind in every organized plan of thought,
and cannot safely be dispensed with. These relate to the
manner in which the thought should make its way, and to
the natural stages of progress.

Manner of Progress. — In every body of thought certain
traits of relation and progress should be sought first of all, as
fundamental.

440 INVENTION IN ITS* ELEMENTS.

i. The several stages of the thought, divisions and subdi
visions alike, must have distinction ; that is, they must in
their, range be exclusive of each other, not running and mix-
ing together. This does not preclude following a thought by
its corollary or immediate consequence, for these are natu-
rally distinguished as such.

Note. — It is this quality of distinction, especially, that is had in view
and promoted by working out a skeleton plan. Of course the existence of
the quality is quite apart from the displaying of it ; the thoughts may be
distinct and mutually exclusive while the reader, getting all the benefit of
the fact, may be unaware how they come to be so.

2. The several stages of the thought must have coherent
sequence ; they must, while working as members of a whole and
members of each other, grow by steady progress one out of
the other. The ideal is to make such a thread of continuity
extend through the whole ^.s will give it a kind of narra-
tive movement, with a like obviousness of cause and effect or
other associative affinities between the members.1

Note. — As laid down in tabular form the headings have the disadvan-
tage of seeming like a catalogue ; this, however, is not really the case if
they have been thought with constant reference to a theme. They are
more truly links in a chain; and this is the ideal to have in view. In the
finished form such marks of transition and continuity are supplied as will
disguise, as far as the necessary distinction in the thought will permit, the
disagreeable catalogue effect.

3. The several stages of the thought must move in climax ;
that is, they must, in some determinate sense, gather momen-
tum as they advance, and reach a culmination of interest. A
thought is planned not only from, or rather in obedience to,
a theme, but toward an end ; and it is the increasing attrac-
tion of approach to this end which produces climax.

1 See above, p. 436. In the Illustrative Plan, note how I, 2 supplies a thought
which by direct sequence suggests II.

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 441

Note. — This climax, which is a broad principle,1 may be apparent in
many forms, some of which will come up for future mention. It may
express itself in greater rapidity or intensity of style ; it may show merely
in the significance of the thought, — always as estimated by the writer's
supreme purpose. In any case the object is, while determining what the
supreme point of importance shall be, to make the interest grow toward
that as an end.

Natural Stages of Progress. — Whatever intricacies of plot
or plan may be necessary to set forth the subject-matter, one
plain current of progress must be kept in mind and provided
for, — the same current already indicated in small in the
scheme of paragraph structure,2 a scheme representing, as
there stated, the logical progress that obtains in all ordered
thinking. On this we need not dwell here, further than to
explain in a few words how the same essential stages of prog-
ress reappear in the larger composition, that give informal
structure to the paragraph.

i. In every composition there is needed first of all a defin-
ing stage, in which the meaning, range, limits, and occasion
of the thought in hand are determined so far as is needed for
the due setting-forth of what succeeds. The example of this
in narrative is the setting of the scene and period, and the
introduction of main characters and situation, — in a word,
getting the story started. In argumentation it shows itself
in fixing the nature, limits, and general significance of the
question. As preliminary to the others, this stage requires
such brevity and vigor of treatment as will enable the reader
as pleasurably as possible to tide over what it essentially is, —
a waiting stage.

2. Every composition has a stage, and that the most cen-
tral and momentous, wherein the subject-matter is established
by such lines of detail or explication or reasoning as are

1 For climax as an organic principle of style, see above, p. 292.

2 See above, p. 365.

442 INVENTION- IN ITS ELEMENTS.

necessary to make the view of it round and complete. Ir
this stage, so to say, the problem is worked out in its various
involvements ; a typical example of it is what is called the
tying of the knot in the plot of a story. It is the part of
the work on which the writer naturally lays out his originality
and strength.

3. Then finally there is the solution stage, wherein the
lines of thought are disengaged from their involvements and
directed to their application, — the knot is untied. This,
according to the nature of the thought and of the object had
in view, may be by summary, appeal, or practical result. As
compared with the preceding, this section is ordinarily short,
yet contains the clearest and most pointed kind of work. It
is the part wherein the object and upshot of it all comes
into view.

Illustration. — The plan given on p. 439 well illustrates these three
stages, its main divisions fairly corresponding to them respectively. The
Introduction and first division are definitive, serving to give the state of the
question and contrast the prevailing ideal with the ideal to be established.
Thus the exact status and occasion of the subject are determined as a pre-
liminary. The second main division, with its review of standard historians,
brings before the reader the several aspects of the question, the particulars
that need solution, with a general indication of what solution is needed.
The third main division, with conclusion, then takes up the suggestions of
these aspects and applies them to the supreme outcome of the inquiry, —
the one means by which historical truth can be adequately told.

It is not to be gathered from the foregoing remarks that
every plan should appear under three headings. As a matter
of fact these stages, and especially the middle one, may
require several divisions for their working-out, while yet all
these are coordinated under the general duty of defining,
establishing, or enforcing. Or again, the opening stage may
shrink to the dimensions of a mere introduction, and the solu-
tion stage to a brief conclusion. All this depends on the
amount and kind of work each part has to do. What is

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 443

contended here is, that the nature and need of these kinds of
work must be interrogated, and each according to the call
for it have place in the plan.

2. For Choice according to Character of Thought. — With
these fundamental requisites thus defined, we may now go
on to consider various laws and principles of structure.
These, as truly as the preceding, must enter into every plan,
but the character of the thought determines what aspect of
them shall be chosen.

Laws of Thought-Association. — The principles most deeply
underlying the interrelations of a well-ordered scheme are just
the principles by which things are remembered, the so-called
laws of association. Making a plan is thus merely designing
a practical aid to the reader's memory, and this by making
the thought move in the lines that his mind will naturally
follow in the endeavor to recall. The prosperity of a plan
depends very largely on rigid obedience to these laws.

The general laws of association, as enumerated by psy-
chologists, are three. In literary planning they seldom work
in absolute singleness ; their interplay is very constant and
varied ; yet the predominance of some one of them is pretty
sure to give a prevailing strain to the thought in hand.

i. The law of contiguity. A great many facts are remem-
bered together simply because they lie side by side and touch
each other. Such are facts existing in space, as the details
of a house or landscape ; and facts existing in time, as the
successive events in a transaction. To make a plan for such
details is for the most part to follow a framework already
in the mind l ; we all know in what order to look for the

1 In the following quotation is recognized how contiguity helps toward making its
own plan: "Considered as an Author, llerr Teufelsdrdckh has one scarcely pardon-
able fault, doubtless his worst : an almost total want of arrangement. In this rem-.u li-
able Volume, it is true, his adherence to the mere com se of Time produces, through the
Narrative portions, a certain show of outward method; but of true logical method
and sequence there is too little." — CARLYLB, Sartor Rcsarlns, Chap. iv.

444 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

particulars of a building or a human face or a day's events 01
a man's life. So although contiguity is the loosest law of asso-
ciation, things are recalled by it with most pleasure and with
least expenditure of brain. This is what makes narrative and
description, in which this law predominates, the most popular
forms of literature.

Example. — A biographical or historical essay naturally groups its facts
on the principle of contiguity, events following each other in the order of
time. Macaulay in his Essay on History x builds for the most part on this
order, both in the main divisions, which are

I. Characteristics of ancient historical composition,
II. Characteristics of modern historical composition,
and in the stages of the first part, which, following the development of
history from novel to essay, mentions authors in the main chronologically,
— Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius, Plutarch, Livy, Tacitus,
etc. In the second division a different principle is adopted.

2. The law of similarity, with its correlate the law of con-
trast. The characteristics of things, both objects of sense
and logical concepts, are in great part remembered from
their likeness or their striking oppositeness to something
else ; hence, in grouping thoughts much recourse is had to
this law, — it underlies the whole work of illustration and
explanation. Exposition, as a literary type, is founded pre-
dominantly on this kind of association.

Example. — i. An instance of a plea developed on the principle of
similarity occurs in Burke's Bristol speech.2 The charge that he sets him-
self to answer is thus worded : " It has been said, and it is the second
charge, that in the question of the Irish trade I did not consult the interests
of my constituents, — or, to speak out strongly, that I rather acted as a
native of Ireland than as an English member of Parliament." The answer
to this charge is a plea that his action has been like his action in the Ameri-
can war; and to make this more lucid he makes the plan of the Irish part
and of the American studiously alike in divisions and subdivisions. The
following plan will show this : —

1 See the theme of this given, p. 423, above.

2 Burke, Speech to the Electors of Bristol {Select British Eloquence, p. 295).

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 445

I. My conduct in the Irish matter itself.

i. True to my invariable principle, I advocated conciliation.

2. This conciliatory policy was rejected by the English.

3. The sequel — Irish demands and English disgraceful concessions.

4. Conduct that such a state of affairs demanded.

II. My similar conduct in connection with the American war.

1. Toward America likewise I advocated conciliation.

2. This conciliation was likewise rejected by the English.

3. The sequel — American scorn and English ignominious proposals

of concession.

4. My conduct in such a state of affairs vindicated.

The aim of this section was avowedly " to read what was approaching in
Ireland in the black and bloody characters of the American war " ; that is,
to read principles and events by their analogues.

2. In Professor Wilson's plan, p. 439, the first and second main divisions
are conceived in a simple contrast, the present " dispassionate " school rep-
resenting what historical art is not, the succeeding discussion opposing to
it what historical art is. Carlyle and Gibbon, too, in II, 2, are grouped
as representing contrasted kinds of impression. The two main divisions of
Macaulay's essay, as given on p. 444, are not only chronological, but in
a way antithetic in suggestion, — ancient opposed to modern.

3. The law of cause and effect. The most spontaneous
logical inquiry is after the cause of things ; the most natural
impulse, if we are dealing with an active principle, to trace it
onward to its effects. Accordingly, in matters requiring close
and logical thinking, as for instance argumentation, this, the
most intimate of associative laws, is depended on to make the
chain strong and coherent. In narrative, too, there is a con-
stant effort to reinforce the mere chronological order, which
as such is the loose order of contiguity, by the revealing of
cause and effect, — to show events as occurring not only post
hoc but propter hoc.

Examples. — In the Illustrative Plan, p. 439, the two subdivisions under
I are given, the second as the cause of the first. The third main division
is virtually the effect following on the second, — the result of the analysis,
as expressed in the requirements it reveals. This law of cause and effect
may of course be applied very broadly.

446 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

i to

To work with these laws of association in mind, and
make the sequence as clearly in obedience to them as pos-
sible, is the most effectual way to make the thought a nat-
urally moving current ; while neglect of them inevitably
makes it seem crude and arbitrary. These laws are merely
names for the most fundamental and universal affinities of
thought, which must be consulted first as a kind of current
standard.

Orders of Thought-Building. — The same principle already
traced in the sentence applies on its larger scale to the whole
composition ; namely, that the plan should begin with what
is nearest to the reader and the occasion, as being best known
or most in the air, and end with what is newest, whether as a
discovery or an application. The following out of this prin-
ciple leads us to note two opposite ways in which it may
work, according to the object had in view ; or, as we may
call them, two orders of thought-building.

i. The inductive order, — what may be called the order of
investigation ; wherein the final goal is a new and hitherto
undiscovered truth, and wherein the steps that lead to it are
details or particulars that go to build up the proof of it.
Thus this order works from particulars to generals, from
facts to principles, from what is known and accepted to what
is unknown and sought.

In a single sentence we may define this order of thought-
building as that in which the central truth of all is the point
of approach.

The advantage of this order is that it takes the reader, as it
were, into partnership, and goes over with him the same course
that one takes in finding out a truth. This fact suggests the
kind of truths to which the inductive order is best adapted ;
namely, truths that would seem strange, or rouse opposition
unless their proof preceded them, compelling the conclusion.
Such, especially, are new results of science, investigation, or

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 447

verified thought ; it is for this reason that the order is called
the order of investigation.1

Examples. — i. The Illustrative Plan, which concerns itself with a
matter of investigation — how to tell the truth of the matter — is essentially
inductive ; it sets out with an obvious truth, and by successive considera-
tions, positive and negative, gradually builds up its culminating proposi-
tion, that the impression made should be the same as that which was made
on the actors in history themselves. It is for this conclusion, this new
statement of principle, that the essay exists.

2. A section in the middle of Macaulay's Essay on History11 is built very
strikingly on the inductive plan. It concerns itself with investigating the
chief cause why modern historians far surpass the ancients in the philosophy
of history, — a cause which at first is only hinted at, thus : " There was, we
suspect, another cause, less obvious, but still more powerful." The writer
then, beginning at a remote point, accumulates facts from which he draws
successive partial conclusions, until the whole cause is made apparent. The
following plan will show this : —

I. The spirit of ancient nations was exclusive.

The Greeks cared only for themselves.

"* b. The Romans cared only for themselves and the Greeks.

( a. This produced narrowness and monotony of thought.
2. Effects : \ b. Aggravated to intellectual torpor by despotism of

( Caesars.

II. The torpor of intellect was broken by two revolutions.

/ a. The moral revolution — Christianity.
i. Facts: ) b. Relapse into worse intellectual barrenness.

( c. The political revolution — invasion of northern nations.

1 "If my object is to convince you of a general truth, or to impress you with a
feeling, which you are not already prepared to accept, it is obvious that the most
effective method is the inductive, which leads your mind upon a culminating wave of
evidence or emotion to the very point I aim at." — Lewes, Principles of Success in
Literature, p. 145. — " But knowledge that is delivered as a thread to be spun on,
ought to be delivered and intimated, if it were possible, in tlic same method wherein it
was invented : and so is it possible of knowledge induced. ... A man may revisit
and descend unto the foundations of his knowledge and consent ; and so transplant it
into another, as it grew in his own mind. For it is in knowledges as it is in plants :
if you mean to use the plant, it is no matter for the roots ; but if you mean to remove
it to grow, then it is more assured to rest upon roots than slips. So the delivery of
knowledges (as it is now used) is as of fair bodies of trees without the roots; good for
the carpenter, but not for the planter. But if you will have sciences grow, it is less
matter for the shaft or body of the tree, so you look well to the taking up of the
roots." — Bacon, Advancement of Learning, Book ii, p. 171.

2 Extending from p. 411 to 419 in Riverside edition Essays, Vol. i.

448 ' INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

< a. Invasion threw the countries open to each other.

\ b. Thus opening a field and motive for philosophy.
" Hence it is that, in generalization, the writers of modern times have far
surpassed those of antiquity."

2. The deductive order, — what may be called the order of
enforcement ; wherein the goal is not so much new principles
as new applications or illustrations of principles already known
and conceded. Beginning with the large truth or principle
which informs the whole, it moves on to the minor principles,
examples, facts, which give it vital effect in the present dis-
cussion. Thus this order is from generals to particulars,
from principles to facts, from a known truth to novel and
unexpected applications in familiar experience.

In a single sentence we may define this order of thought-
building as that wherein the central truth is a point of
departure.

The advantage of this order is, that while it deals with
concrete facts and illustrations the reader is all the while
aware of their bearings and consenting to them. It is espe-
cially adapted, therefore, to the treatment of important prac-
tical truths of life and conduct, truths that men are not so
much inclined to deny as to neglect, and that are brought
home by personal application. The order is most purely
illustrated in oratory.1

Examples. — r. The plan from Newman Hall, given on p. 437, above,
is essentially deductive ; it begins with a statement of the truth it proposes
to illustrate and then specifies its concrete applications one by one. Thus
the interest centres in the particulars of illustration, as they successively
identify themselves with the initial truth.

1 " The deductive method is best when I wish to direct the light of familiar
truths and roused emotions upon new particulars, or upon details in unsuspected
relation to those truths ; and when I wish the attention to be absorbed by these
particulars which are of interest in themselves, not upon the general truths which are
of no present interest except in as far as they light up these details. A growing
thought requires the inductive exposition, an applied thought the deductive." —
Lewes, Principles of Success in Literature, p. 145.

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 449

2. The following section from Burke's Speech on the East India Bill 1
illustrates the deductive order, by beginning with the most general and
inclusive consideration, which it divides into headings less general, and
these again into still less general, until it reaches the concrete facts : —
I. The East India Company was guilty of an atrocious abuse of trust.

A. Their conduct viewed in its political light.

i. As to abuse of external federal trust.

a. They have sold the native princes, states, and officials.

b. They have broken every treaty.

c. They have ruined all who confided in them.
2. As to abuse of internal administration.

a. They have been purely a curse, not an advantage, to the

country.

b. Their rule has reacted to the hurt of society at home.

c. Their rule has been an abuse to tributary governments.

B. Their conduct viewed in its commercial light. — The tests of

mercantile dealing by which they have failed : —

i. Buying cheap and selling dear.

2. Strictness in driving bargains.

3. Watchfulness over honesty of clerks.

4. Exactness in accounts.

5. Care in estimating and providing for profits.

6. Care in readiness to meet bills.

Here all the subdivisions lead out toward individual applications or
exemplifications of the inclusive assertion at the beginning.

III.

Appendages of the Plan. — The articulation of the plan,
and its movement from inception to culmination, are pro-
vided for in the central body of discourse. The other parts
— introduction, conclusion, transitions — though in their
occasion necessary, are to be regarded and designed as
appendages, as devices for making the body of procedure
effective, rather than as having independent significance.
To treat them as mere conventional flourishes is to ignore
their practical value and introduce an air of trifling into
the work.

1 Select British Eloquence, pp. 316-320.

450 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

Note. — Accordingly, as pointed out on p. 434, 3, the introduction and
conclusion are not numbered in the body of the discourse. Of course,
however, when they coordinate with the others, as introductory and conclud-
ing stages of the thought, they may be so numbered ; it is a case where
the formal introduction and conclusion are omitted.

The Introduction. — The introduction comprises whatever
is necessary to make proper approach to the theme, or to
the point where the theme begins its work and power.

Note. — This last remark is made for those cases where the theme is
not expressed in a proposition, but diffused through the body of the work.1
The natural place to state the theme, therefore, when it is stated, is at the
end of the introduction. This is exemplified, typically, though somewhat
formally, in the introduction quoted from Dr. Bushnell, p. 425, where the
introduction leads up to and culminates in an elaborate status of the theme.
Sometimes to such a statement there is added a brief indication of the plan
by its leading heads.

1. The rationale of the introduction, while essentially the
same for all cases, differs somewhat in procedure according
as the reader is to be introduced to a way of thinking or to
a way of feeling, — in other words, according as the work is
predominantly didactic or emotional.

When the work is intellectual or didactic, that is, when the
writer's object is to inform, instruct, or convince, it is gen-
erally sufficient for the introduction to determine the setting
of the theme : in time, if the work is historical ; in space, if
descriptive ; in some system of ideas, if expository. It enters
the general region of fact or thought to which the work
belongs, disengages the subject from the various associations
extraneous to present treatment, and furnishes such prelimi-
nary information as is needed to put the reader in possession
of subject, point of view, and manner of treatment.

Example. — This typical object of the introduction is well illustrated in
the opening paragraph of Gibbon's History 2 : —

1 See above, p. 426.

2 Gibbon, History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, VoL i, p. 1

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 451

" In the second century of the Christian Era, the empire of Rome com-
prehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilized portion of
mankind. The frontiers of that extensive monarchy were guarded by
ancient renown and disciplined valor. The gentle but powerful influence
of laws and manners had gradually cemented the union of the provinces.
Their peaceful inhabitants enjoyed and abused the advantages of wealth
and luxury. The image of a free constitution was preserved with decent
reverence : the Roman senate appeared to possess the sovereign authority,
and devolved on the emperors all the executive powers of government.
During a happy period of more than fourscore years, the public administra-
tion was conducted by the virtue and abilities of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian,
and the two Antonines. It is the design of this, and of the two succeeding
chapters, to describe the prosperous condition of their empire ; and after-
wards, from the death of Marcus Antoninus, to deduce the most important
circumstances of its decline and fall ; a revolution which will ever be remem-
bered, and is still felt by the nations of the earth."

This gives in brief sketch the era from which the history takes its rise,
the characteristics of that supreme point of the Roman history from which
the only progress was decline. In so voluminous a work three chapters are
needed to fill in the description thus sketched in the opening paragraph.

When the work is set in a more emotional key, as for
instance in the case of oratory, the setting is sometimes more
complex: to make the hearer feel rightly toward the subject
it may have to arouse interest, overcome prejudice, make
personal explanations, and the like.1 The prevailing senti-
ment nowadays is to say as little as possible about one's self
and trust to the intrinsic importance of the subject for inter-
est and emotional power. Whatever is said about circum-
stances is by way of securing some connection with the
particular occasion of speaking.

Example. — The following, which is the introduction to Ruskin's lecture
on War,2 exemplifies about what an orator of present-day taste ventures to
say in a preliminary way about himself and his subject : —

1 Cicero's definition of the introduction (and he refers to the oratorical introduc-
tion) is, that its object is " rcddcrc audUores baicvolos, attentos, dociles" — to make
the auditors well-disposed, i.c. to the speaker, attentive, i.e. interested in the subject-
matter, and teachable, i.e. freed from prejudice and opposition to the cause.

2 Ruskin, Crown of Wild Olive, p. 115.

452 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

" Young Soldiers, I do not doubt but that many of you came unwill-
ingly to-night, and many in merely contemptuous curiosity, to hear what a
writer on painting could possibly say, or would venture to say, respecting
your great art of war. You may well think within yourselves that a painter
might, perhaps without immodesty, lecture younger painters upon painting,
but not young lawyers upon law, nor young physicians upon medicine —
least of all, it may seem to you, young warriors, upon war. And, indeed,
when I was asked to address you, I declined at first, and declined long ;
for I felt that you would not be interested in my special business, and would
certainly think there was small need for me to come to teach you yours.
Nay, I knew that there ought to be no such need, for the great veteran soldiers
of England are now men every way so thoughtful, so noble, and so good, that
no other teaching than their knightly example, and their few words of grave
and tried counsel, should be either necessary for you, or even, without
assurance of due modesty in the offerer, endured by you.

" But being asked* not once nor twice, I have not ventured persistently
to refuse ; and I will try, in very few words, to lay before you some reason
why you should accept my excuse, and hear me patiently. You may
imagine that your work is wholly foreign to, and separate from, mine. So
far from that, all the pure and noble arts of peace are founded on war ; no
great art ever yet rose on earth, but among a nation of soldiers."

By the time he has reached this point the speaker, in the most natural
way possible, has his subject fairly well suggested.

2. In style, the introduction should aim at two main
qualities : vigor, in order to stimulate and secure attention at
once ; and plain directness, in order at once to get a nucleus
round which the thought may cluster. The introduction is
not the place for elaborate or pretentious expression ; nor on
the other hand can it bear languid or labored expression.
Not a little depends on the lucid vigor of the opening
sentence, which ought to be so constructed as, while not
amplifying at all, to give a distinct push to the whole subject,
like pushing a boat out from shore. For this reason a favor-
ite way is to set out with a quotation, or a figure, or an anec-
dote, so chosen as to embody the preliminary consideration
in concrete form. Whatever the device, its aim from the first
word is to foster anticipation and secure a' hearing.

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 453

Examples. — The introduction to The Truth of the Matter, which
essay takes its occasion from the prevailing sentiment in historical compo-
sition, sets out abruptly with a quotation which embodies the whole case,
and comments on this : —

" ' Give us the facts, and nothing but the facts,' is the sharp injunction
of our age to its historians. Upon the face of it, an eminently reasonable
requirement. To tell the truth simply, openly, without reservation, is the
unimpeachable first principle of all right dealing; and historians have no
license to be quit of it. Unquestionably they must tell us the truth, or else
get themselves enrolled among a very undesirable class of persons, not often
frankly named in polite society. But the thing is by no means so easy as
it looks. The truth of history is a very complex and very occult matter.
It consists of things which are invisible as well as of things which are
visible. It is full of secret motives, and of a chance interplay of trivial and
yet determining circumstances ; it is shot through with transient passions,
and broken athwart here and there by what seem cruel accidents ; it can-
not all be reduced to statistics or newspaper items or official recorded
statements. And so it turns out, when the actual test of experiment is
made, that the historian must have something more than a good conscience,
must be something more than a good man. He must have an eye to see
the truth ; and nothing but a very catholic imagination will serve to illumi-
nate his matter for him : nothing less than keen and steady insight will
make even illumination yield him the truth of what he looks upon. Even
when he has seen the truth, only half his work is done, and that not the
more difficult half. He must then make others see it just as he does: only
when he has done that has he told the truth." Etc.

By the time the introduction has proceeded thus far it has its subject
fairly launched, wi.th the occasion and call for it suggested. Of the figura-
tive outset, the well-known introduction of Webster's Reply to Hayne is
an example.

3. Though written in its order, the introduction to a work
is not the first thing designed ; or at least if so it is apt to
be too rambling and remote from the subject. The design
of it should be delayed until the course of thought is so fully
in mind that only this one connecting link with reader and
occasion remains to be supplied ; then its plain and direct
office will be obvious.1

1 " The last thing that we find in making a book is to know what we must put first."
— Pascal, Thoughts, p. 240.

454 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

The Conclusion. — The object of a formal conclusion at the
end of a literary work is to gather together the various threads
of argument, thought, or appeal, and so to apply them as to
leave on the reader's mind a unity of impression correspond-
ing to the aim of the discourse. It is essential that there be
one comprehensive effect, one focal truth, by which the work
shall be remembered.

i. The relation of the conclusion to the rest of the work
needs a word of notice. While the body of the argument has
tended to diversity, following as it did the radiations of the
thought into its various divisions and aspects, the conclusion,
like the introduction, works to a unity. Thus, in a sense, the
discourse ends where it began. But it does not end as it
began. The introduction, as we have seen, called in the
thought from extraneous associations and concentrated it on
the theme ; the conclusion now gathers up the theme anew
from its various components, and concentrates it on an appli-
cation, or dynamic point, corresponding to the spirit and
design of the whole work.

2. What form this application shall assume depends some-
what, as in the case of the introduction, on whether the su-
preme effect desired is intellectual or emotional.

When the work is purely of the intellect, the conclusion is
naturally either a recapitulation, more or less formal, of the
main stages of the argument, or a summary embodying the
essential theme. In this latter case it may be merely the last
stage of a series ; but when such, the other stages should show
as successive steps in an inductive order, so that when this
appears it may be the key and culmination of the whole.

When the work is one to be felt and acted upon, the con-
clusion becomes a sort of appeal to motive and duty,
gathering into itself the spirit of the discourse, and giv-
ing it a thrust toward conduct. In tone it may be
either soberly practical or strenuous and impassioned ; in

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 455

this respect obeying the momentum of the discourse that
has preceded it.

Examples. — i. Of the summarizing conclusion. The essay on The
Truth of the Matter summarizes its argument in the idea of art : —

" It is thus and only thus we shall have the truth of the matter : by art,
— by the most difficult of all arts; by fresh study and first-hand vision ; at
the mouths of men who stand in the midst of old letters and musty docu-
ments and neglected records, not like antiquarians, but like those who see
a distant country and a far-away people before their very eyes, as real, as
full of life and hope and incident, as the day in which they themselves live.
Let us have done with humbug and come to plain speech. The historian
needs an imagination quite as much as he needs scholarship, and consum-
mate literary art as much as candor and common honesty. Histories are
written in order that the bulk of men may read and realize ; and it is as
bad to bungle the telling of the story as to lie, as fatal to lack a vocabulary
as to lack knowledge. In no case can you do more than convey an
impression, so various and complex is the matter. If you convey a false
impression, what difference does it make how you convey it ? In the
whole process there is a nice adjustment of means to ends which only the
artist can manage. There is an art of lying ; — there is equally an art, — an
infinitely more difficult art, — of telling the truth."

2. Of the impassioned conclusion. Ruskin, concluding his lecture on
The Deteriorative Power of Conventional Art over Nations 1 with an appeal
to motive and character, at once summarizes the two main sides of his
thought and gives their moral significance : —

" Make, then, your choice, boldly and consciously, for one way or other
it must be made. On the dark and dangerous side are set the pride which
delights in self-contemplation — the indolence which rests in unquestioned
forms — the ignorance that despises what is fairest among God's creatures,
and the dulness that denies what is marvellous in his working: there is a
life of monotony for your own souls, and of misguiding for those of others.
And, on the other side, is open to your choice the life of the crowned spirit,
moving as a light in creation — discovering always — illuminating always,
gaining every hour in strength, yet bowed down every hour into deeper
humility; sure of being right in its aim, sure of being irresistible in its
progress; happy in what it has securely done — happier in what, day by
day, it may as securely hope ; happiest at the close of life, when the right
hand begins to forget its cunning, to remember, that there was never a

1 Ruskin, The Two Paths, p. 53.

456 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

touch of the chisel or the pencil it wielded, but has added to the knowledge
and quickened the happiness of mankind."

3. The actual culmination of an impassioned discourse is
not always, perhaps not ideally, at the very end. There is
needed a kind of cadence, a letting down to earth from a sus-
tained and lofty flight, a gentle provision for the revulsion
that may follow in the hearer's mind. This need is the occa-
sion of the cadence conclusion, — a final passage in more
quiet and subdued style, giving some thought related to the
argument though not directly aimed at.

Apart from this graduated ending, the conclusion as a
whole has not the motive for restraint in style that has been
noted of the introduction. It takes influence from the char-
acter of the discourse preceding it ; and thus, if there is emo-
tion or depth of thought to warrant, it may fittingly adopt
imagery, rhythm, a somewhat more spacious and rolling sen-
tence structure. This is not inconsistent with its general
character as a cadenced effect ; it merely specifies a particu-
lar kind of cadence.

Examples. — Of the heightened and eloquent conclusion, the quotation
just given from Ruskin is an example. A long suspensive structure used
as a conclusion may be seen in the quotation from Cardinal Newman,
p. 284, above. A familiar classical example is the peroration of Webster's
Reply to Hayne.

The closing paragraph of Ruskin's Seven Lamps of Architecture is a
good example of a cadence conclusion, with its subdued tone : —

" I have paused, not once nor twice, as I wrote, and often have checked
the course of what might otherwise have been importunate persuasion, as
the thought has crossed me, how soon all Architecture may be vain, except
that which is not made with hands. There is something ominous in the
light which has enabled us to look back with disdain upon the ages among
whose lovely vestiges we have been wandering. I could smile when I hear
the hopeful exultation of many, at the new reach of worldly science, and
vigor of worldly effort ; as if we were again at the beginning of days.
There is thunder on the horizon as well as dawn. The sun was risen upon
the earth when Lot entered into Zoar."1

1 Ruskin, Seven Lamps of Architecture, p. 388.

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 457

Transitions. — A transition, as the name indicates, is a
passage over from one division of the thought to another. It
is an intermediate statement, in which is found something
retained from what precedes, and something anticipatory of
what follows. But in addition to this, it is essential that the
transition be a distinct thought in itself, a statement worth
making. To make the turn on a mere catch-word is merely
to force thoughts together by arbitrary association.

Example of a Catch- Word Transition. — In the following, from
a student essay, the new stage of the thought is tacked on by the chance
suggestion of a word : —

" The people have now a much warmer interest in college base-ball games
than even in the best professional league games.

" And that is what we must keep out of our college athletics, profession-
alism, which has crept into some of our sports, but which we must
earnestly strive to abolish."

A transition is merely a form of explicit reference,1 made
more marked and extended because the thoughts it connects
have more important rank in the composition. The problem
of transition — how to make one stage of thought pass nat-
urally into the next — is always present in literary compo-
sition, and is especially to be satisfied between the main
divisions. The most important transition of all occurs natu-
rally between the introduction and the body of discussion;
the next in importance, which however is much easier to
effect, occurs between the discussion and the conclusion. In
any case the aim is, while not impairing the perfect distinc-
tion of the connected thoughts, to give them a genuine, not
forced or arbitrary, sequence.2

Example of Transition Thought.— Referring to the Illustrative Plan,
p. 439, it will be seen that there is a gap between the introductory thought,
as there expressed, and the subject of the first main heading. The intro-
duction (see p. 453), portraying the ideal, has led up to this statement :

1 For which, see above, p. 370.

2 For these qualities, as necessary requisites, see above, p. 440.

45S INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

" The thing is infinitely difficult. The skill and strategy of it cannot
be taught." Then follows this transition thought : " And so historians
take another way, which is easier : they tell part of the truth, — the part
most to their taste, or most suitable to their talents, — and obtain readers
to their liking among those of similar tastes and talents to their own."
Going on through an intermediate paragraph of amplification, in which are
described some of the partial histories that deal with the kinds of truth
they like and let the rest go, this transition thought leads finally to the
inquiry : " Is there no way in which all the truth may be made to hold
together in a narrative so strongly knit and so harmoniously colored that
no reader will have either the wish or the skill to tear its patterns asunder,
and men will take it all, unmarred and as it stands, rather than miss the
zest of it ? " The answer to this is the first stage of the discussion, which
(a negative stage) is opened by the sentence : " It is evident the thing
cannot be done by the ' dispassionate ' annalist."

III. THE AMPLIFYING IDEAS.

In the making of the plan, the course and movement of the
thought have been charted out ; the relations of the main
ideas to the theme and to each other have been determined ;
but as yet these ideas have been expressed only as headings,
and together they have formed only a skeleton, a bony struc-
ture. As the next and final stage of composition now, this
bony structure must be clothed with the rounded fulness of
life ; the core ideas must take to themselves a fitting body of
explanatory, illustrative, and vivifying thought. To supply
this, with all the finishing touches necessary to make the
composition complete, is the work of amplification ; a process
in which invention and style are equally concerned, being
their final meeting-ground.

Amplification is often regarded with suspicion, as if it were
merely spreading the thought out thin, or putting in what is
called "padding"; and no advice about writing is more pop-
ular than the advice to "boil it down." This suspicion is
directed, however, only to the abuse of amplification, which

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 459

may be easy and great ; but rightly managed amplification is
simply the most vital and necessary process in all composi-
tion, it is in fact the summit of composition itself, approached
from the inventive side.1

The Glow of Composition. — As we enter upon the study of
this final stage of the work, we need to take practical note of
the fact that amplification is a more fervid process than plan-
ning. The writer is in a more exalted mood. From a mood
of severe discriminating thought, whose task it was to gather,
weigh, and distribute ideas so as to satisfy the logical sense,
he has passed, so to say, into an ardor of thinking, wherein
the spirit of the work is acting; he is living through some-
thing of the vigor, the clear vision, the emotion, that he is
trying to awaken in his reader. Thought and thinking
— both these enter into the work ; and it is important to use
the energy of the latter for what it is worth.

For this glow of composition sharpens his faculties and
gives him clearer insight into all his work. It reacts also on
the plan that he has made. New wordings are suggested,
new distinctions and points of effect, and not infrequently
changes of order. This does not mean that the plan has
become useless ; too many think it does and throw away the
plan here ; it simply means that the course of thought has
become a more vital thing, more self-justifying and natural.
It suggests also that plan-making is not something to be done
once for all and closed ; rather, the plan should be kept open
and flexible, to gain all it may from the quickened mood of
composition. A useful maxim to bear in mind is, Do not be
the slave of your own prearranged plan of discourse.2

1 " Amplification, I say, which in strict definition is not making a few thoughts go
a long way, by powerful inflation, but clothing your outlined [discourse] in a full-
rounded corporeity of actual, ponderable thoughts, all of them relational, of course, to
that outline with its first, second, third and fourth, of main thoughts." — BUK ion,
Yale Lectures , \>. 59.

9 This conclusion lias been anti< ipated above, p. 432.

460 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

Of amplification, it is the business of the present section,
after first glancing at its opposite, to discuss its objects, its
means, and its accessories.

The Province of Unamplified Expression. — It is to be con-
ceded that not all enunciations of thought need amplification.
There are cases where the most condensed and pointed
expression is to be devised as final and best, — where any
enlargement or elucidation is apt to result in weakening and
dilution.1 Such cases a sound literary instinct will recognize.

For this reason, along with the ability to amplify, the
writer should no less diligently cultivate the exact opposite
— the ability to compress thought into the telling and preg-
nant form of aphorism. An aphorism is not merely a short
sentence. It is a short sentence crowded so full of thought
that it overflows.2 For its end of sententiousness it may be
somewhat sweeping, one-sided, paradoxical ; still, when the
reader has thought beyond its bounds, as its art of putting
things makes him do, it corrects itself.3 To write aphoris-
tically is a native gift, largely, but it may also be worked for
and developed. And its value is that it not only promotes
the habit of thinking much in little compass ; it enables one
better to fix his landmarks of thought, its cardinal and its

1 From the side of style this liability has been touched upon under Condensation
for Vigor, p. 295, above.

2 " Aphorisms, except they should be ridiculous, cannot be made but of the pith
and heart of sciences ; for discourse of illustration is cut off ; recitals of examples
are cut off ; discourse of connexion and order is cut off ; descriptions of practice are
cut off. So there remaineth nothing to fill the Aphorisms but some good quantity of
observation : and therefore no man can suffice, nor in reason will attempt, to write
Aphorisms, but he that is sound and grounded." — Bacon, Advancement of Learn-
ing, Book ii, p. 172.

3 " The very essence of an aphorism is that slight exaggeration which makes it
more biting while less rigidly accurate." — Stephen, Hours in a Library, Vol. ii,
p. 3. — The danger to be guarded against in such writing is spoken of, p. 276, above.

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 461

subordinate points, by putting a fit share of his expression
into unamplified form.1

It is well in any discourse to steer the thought now and
then to some sententious conclusion, which shall summarize
what has gone before, or nucleize what is to come, or enunci-
ate some memorable lesson of life. It is in such utterances
that the weighty and important points should be found ; this
is the special value of unamplified thought in the body of a
work.

Aphoristic Literature. — An indication of the estimate people
set on unamplified thought is seen in the fact that every nation
has its distinct body of gnomic or aphoristic literature, in the
shape of popular maxims, bons mots, felicitous phrases, and the
like. The existence of these everywhere is a standing testi-
mony to the value men put upon "the art of putting things."
Relatively small in quantity, these weighty utterances have
access and influence far beyond what their bulk betokens ;
they represent the packed thought of all classes, and circulate
like current coin.

One of the oldest philosophies of the world, the Hebrew,
which was a philosophy of practical life, adopted this sen-
tentious form, which is called the mas/ia/, for its vehicle of
instruction ; thus showing a fine sense of what the form is
especially good for, — a lesson of life, which none can mis-
understand and which therefore needs no elucidation. In
pointed, balanced, often antithetic enunciation it gathers into
one utterance the result of seasoned observation, experience,
wisdom. And so, both for its yield of truth and for its good

1 " Every expedient which reduces circumlocutory expression promotes the power
and the habit of condensed thinking. A taste for short words, for Saxon words, for
unqualified substantives, for crisp sentences, helps the thinking power to work in close
quarters. A writer who acquires a fondness for speaking brevities learns to think in
brevities. Happy is the man whose habit it is to think laconically. There are few
tilings in which the reaction of style on thought and on the thinking force is so obvi-
ous as in the growth of this condensing power." — Phelps, Theory of Pre a cli nig,
p. 447-

462 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

effect on one's own way of thinking, conversance with this
kind of literature has great charm and value.

Note. — The classic and model of aphoristic literature is the Book of
Proverbs. Other collections are: Pascal's Thoughts, The Maxims of La
Rochefoucauld, f Gilbert's Thoughts, Poor Richard's Sayings, Hare's Guesses
at Truth, and Helps's Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd. Besides
these some standard authors — Shakespeare, Bacon, Pope, Landor, and
Emerson — are noted for their sententious style, rich in wise and pithy
sayings.

II.

Objects for which Amplification is employed. — The question
here naturally rising, Why amplify at all? is answered by
recurrence to the shape in which the outline plan has left the
thought. It is all there, essentially, but its condensed form,
as mere headings, does not avail, except perhaps in some
individual sayings, to make it effect its end. In some places
it is too sweeping and absolute,- in others too crowded or
brief, in others still too flat and spiritless. To read it in that
form is like taking food that is condensed into tablets.

Three principal objects of amplification may thus be de-
duced and exemplified.

i. To give proper range, limits, and present application to
an idea. In unamplified form an assertion may be too sweep-
ing ; or while true it may be only a half truth needing to be
guarded and supplemented ; or its present application may
be unusual, needing therefore to be fixed. The first impulse
of amplification, therefore, is toward a kind of definition of
terms, a making sure how much or how little our assertion
shall mean.

2. To give body to an idea, by dwelling on it long enough
for the reader's mind to feel round it and grasp it and realize
it. It takes time to get the bearings of an idea, and to get it
settled and as it were at home in the mind ; so the very object

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE, 463

of devoting time to it, giving it bulk, is one justifying reason
for amplification.1

3. To give an idea its proper coloring or atmosphere ; that
is, to express it in a style adapting it to act, according to its
intrinsic power, upon the sensibilities, or the understanding,
or the will. Some thoughts that reasoned out would have com-
paratively little effect might appeal strongly to the imagination.
Some need merely the white light of clear presentation. Others
still are full of latent eloquence and power on motive. It is on
the appropriate amplification that we must depend, to make
each thought do its predestined work in the reader's mind.2

Illustration. — All the above-mentioned objects of amplification are
clearly illustrated in the following paragraphs,3 as may be seen by help of
the appended notes : —

"The healthy know not of their health, but only the Sententia, or
sick : this is the Physician's Aphorism ; and applicable ground assertion.
in a far wider sense than he gives it. We may say, it 1. To fix its
holds no less in moral, intellectual, political, poetical, application, by
than in merely corporeal therapeutics ; that wherever, taking it in wider
or in what shape soever, powers of the sort which can sense,
be named vital are at work, herein lies the test of their
working right or working wrong.

1 " Time must be given for the intellect to eddy about a truth, and to appropriate its
bearings. There is a sort of previous lubrication, such as the boa constrictor applies
to any subject of digestion, which is requisite to familiarize the mind with a startling
or a complex novelty." — De Quincey, Essay on Style, Works, Vol. iv, p. 180. —
" It is remarked by Anatomists, that the nutritive quality is not the only requisite in
food, — that a certain degree of distension of the stomach is required, to enable it to
act with its full powers ; — and that it is for this reason hay or straw must be given to
horses, as well as corn, in order to supply the necessary bulk. Something analogous
to this takes place with respect to the generality of minds ; which are incapable of
thoroughly digesting and assimilating what is presented to them, however clearly, in
a very small compass. ... It is necessary that the attention should be detained for
a certain time on the subject." — Whately, Elements of Rhetoric, p. 302.

2 " Matter as allied to, in 'electric affinity ' with, peculiar form, and working in all
cases by an immediate sympathetic contact, on which account it is that it may be
called soul, as opposed to mind, in style. And this too is a faculty of choosing and
rejecting what is congruous or otherwise, with a drift towards unity — unity of
atmosphere here, as there of design — soul securing color (or perfume, might we say ?)
as mind secures form." — PATEM, Appreciations, p. 23.

3 Carlyle, Essay on Characteristics, Essays, Vol. iii, p. 1.

464

INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

" In the Body, for example, as all doctors are agreed, 2. To dwell
the first condition of complete health is, that each organ upon it until the
perform its function unconsciously, unheeded ; let but reader realizes its
any organ announce its separate existence, were it even extent of mean-
boastfully, and for pleasure, not for pain, then already ing.
has one of those unfortunate 'false centres of sensi-
bility ' established itself, already is derangement there.
The perfection of bodily well-being is, that the collective
bodily activities seem one ; and be manifested, more-
over, not in themselves, but in the action they accom-
plish. If a Dr. Kitchiner boast that his system is in
high order, Dietetic Philosophy may indeed take credit ;
but the true Peptician was that Countryman who an-
swered that, 'for his part, he had no system.' In fact, 3. To give the
unity, agreement, is always silent, or soft-voiced ; it is spiritual and po-
only discord that loudly proclaims itself. So long as etic significance
the several elements of Life, all fitly adjusted, can pour of it, — the im-
forth their movement like harmonious tuned strings, aginative color-
it is a melody and unison ; Life, from its mysterious ing.
fountains, flows out as in celestial music and diapason,
— which also, like that other music of the spheres, even
because it is perennial and complete, without interrup-
tion and without imperfection, might be fabled to escape
the ear. Thus too, in some languages, is the state of
health well denoted by a term expressing unity ; when
we feel ourselves as we wish to be, we say that we are
whole"

III.

Means of Amplification. — To amplify a thought so that it
shall indeed be more ample, — shall be enriched, not diffused
or diluted, — is at bottom an affair not of means and methods
but of the man. He must be a man of full mind, in whom
the subject in hand is so mastered and matured that his
thought upon it is active and germinant.1 This must be

1 " Where then do amplifications come from, and how can a poor, dry-minded,
constipated mortal get them ? I answer : there is only one way, and that is to
amplify the man." — Burton, Yale Lectures, p. 60. — See also the fine passage
from Cardinal Newman quoted as a footnote, p. 287, above.

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 465

presupposed. Without such grounding no methods can do
more than produce a semblance of amplification. With it,
the means here to be described are the natural ways of work-
ing, according to the intrinsic suggestiveness of ideas and
the needs of the reader.

The leading means of amplification reduce themselves to
three ; each of which, however, has various lines of working.

i. By employing Some Form of Repetition. — This is the
means naturally employed in fixing the meaning of a term, or
in treading in, so to say, some enunciation of truth. Essen-
tially it is definition ; and its virtue consists in so varying the
repeat that it will not seem iterative and yet in changed
aspects will bring the same idea again and again to light.
The old technical name for this broad use of repetition was
interpretatio}

i. The obvious forms of this repetition have already been
recounted2: representing a term in the repeat by a defining
term or phrase ; putting a literal term or assertion in place
of a figurative, and vice versa; putting a concrete for a gen-
eral term ; and the like. All this may be done without seem-
ing to go out of the way to do it.

Examples. — The example quoted from Burke, p. 306, above, is very
plain and striking. Note also how, in the following sentence, the figurative
assertion, "we must ascend," is defined by more literal repetition : " I say
then, if we would improve the intellect, first of all, we must ascend; we
cannot gain real knowledge on a level ; we must generalize, we must reduce
to method, we must have a grasp of principles, and group and shape
our acquisitions by means of them. It matters not whether our field of
operation be wide or limited ; in every case, to command it is to mount
above it." 3

1 Payne, Burke's Select Works, Vol. i, p. xl. He defines it from Whately,
Elements qf Rhetoric, p. 302 : " to repeat the same sentiment and argument in
many different forms of expression ; each, in itself brief, but all, together, affording
such an expansion of the sense to be conveyed, and so, detaining the mind upon it,
as the case may require."

2 See above, pp. 305 sqq. 8 Newman, Idea of a University, p. 139.

466 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

How such repetition, unskilfully managed, may seem to mark time with-
out advancing, may be felt from the following: "No individual can be
happy unless the circumstances of those around him be so adjusted as to
conspire with his interest. For, in human society, no happiness or misery
stands unconnected and independent. Our fortunes are interwoven by
threads innumerable. We touch one another on all sides. One man's
misfortune or success, his wisdom or his folly, often by its consequences
reaches through multitudes." 1

2. Another device, essentially though not so obviously repe-
tition ary, is the employment of the obverse, that is, some
consideration negative to the proposition in hand. This may
take a variety of forms. In the exposition of ideas the nega-
tive is generally direct — what the conception is not, set over
against what it is. In the setting forth of events it may take
more complex forms, as for instance, contrasting what oc-
curred with what might have been expected, or with what
would have occurred had circumstances been different. In
any case the principle is that of antithesis, employed to repeat
the idea in another aspect.2

Examples. — A simple obverse occurs in the sentence quoted above
from Cardinal Newman : " we cannot gain real knowledge on a level."
This is the first restatement of the proposition.

In the following the writer is speaking of unpardonable mannerism in
writing, and he begins with describing its contrast, pardonable mannerism:
" Mannerism is pardonable, and is sometimes even agreeable, when the
manner, though vicious, is natural. Few readers, for example, would be
willing to part with the mannerism of Milton or of Burke. But a manner-
ism which does not sit easy on the mannerist, which has been adopted on
principle, and which can be sustained only by constant effort, is always
offensive. And such is the mannerism of Johnson." 3

1 Quoted from Blair"1 s Sermons,by Payne, Burke's Select Works, Vol. i, p. xli.
On the passage he remarks : " Here the same proposition is repeated five times,
without any material addition or illustration, the impression left being that of great
poverty of thought."

2 For Antithesis as a law of style, see above, p. 271 ; as a law of thought-associa-
tion, p. 444.

3 Macaulay, Essay on BoswelPs Life of Johnson, Essays, Vol. ii, p. 423. See
remarks on Macaulay's treatment of the obverse, Minto, Manual of English Prose
Literature, p. 99.

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHO IE. 467

An example of the contrast between the actual and what one would
expect may be seen in the quotation from Deutsch, on p. 341, above.

3. A very serviceable management of this kind of repetition
consists in expanding the sense until the thought is exhibited
on its various sides, and then contracting it into its most
pointed and striking form. An application of this has
already been noted, in the apothegmatic ending of the para-
graph.1 Its utility is, after elucidating the thought for the
reader to understand, to sum up with a statement for him to
remember.2

2. By reducing Generals to Particulars. — This is perhaps the
most direct and spontaneous form of amplification, obeying
as it does the natural impulse to prove an assertion once
made. It is from the particulars that the writer's generaliza-
tion is derived in the first place ; and now, to make it good,
he separates it into its components before the reader's eyes,
that the reader may have in possession the same ground of
judgment.

This means of amplification may take somewhat different
forms, according as it deals with facts or with principles.

1. A general fact is most naturally amplified by enumera-
tion. It is a case where something depends on accumulating
a goodly store of particulars ; they must be numerous enough
to substantiate the assertion as an actual fact.

Illustrations. — In writing of the times of Edmund Burke, John
Morley makes this comprehensive statement of its signs of progress : " In
every order of activity a fresh and gigantic impulse was given, the tide of
national life widened and swelled under the influence of new and flushed
tributaries, the springs and sources were unsealed of modern ideas, modern
systems, and of ideas and systems that are still to be developed." 3 To the

1 See above, p. 378.

2 " The hearers will lie struck by the forciblcness of the sentence which they will
have lx±en prepared to comprehend ; they will understand the'longtr expression, and
remember the shorter." — WHATBLY, Elements of Rhetoric, p. 351. Foi Balance
Structure as an aid to this aphoristic summary, see pp. 309, 352, above.

3 IfORLBY, Edmund Burke, a Historical Study, p. 63.

468 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

amplification of this statement he devoted four paragraphs, whose topics
are In the Spiritual order, In the Industrial order, In the Speculative and
Scientific order, Fourthly, and finally, in the Political order. This is a
simple enumeration. Another plain example may be seen in Ecclesiastes
iii. 1-8, where the verses after i simply reduce to particulars the opening
assertion.

2. A general principle is most naturally amplified by exem-
plification, in which the object is not so much to substantiate
by the number of details as to illustrate by their character.
The example shows the truth in question in the concrete.

Example. — In the following the principle enunciated at the beginning
is, after it has been enlarged by some definitive sentences, exemplified by
several names chosen casually: "The fermentative influence of geniuses
must be admitted as, at any rate, one factor in the changes that constitute
social evolution. The community may evolve in many ways. The acci-
dental presence of this or that ferment decides in which way it shall evolve.
Why, the very birds of the forest, the parrot, the mino, have the power of
human speech, but never develop it of themselves ; some one must be there
to teach them. So with us individuals. Rembrandt must teach us to enjoy
the struggle of light with darkness, Wagner to enjoy peculiar musical effects ;
Dickens gives a twist to our sentimentality, Artemus Ward to our humor;
Emerson kindles a new moral light within us." *

3. It is to be noted here that the order of amplification in
this form may sometimes be reversed, the general coming in
as a summary to interpret a body of particulars. This is
analogous, on a small scale, to the order of investigation,
mentioned above.2

3. By adding Descriptive Details. — Not all amplification is
in the nature of proof or example ; nor is it always employed
merely in the interests of the understanding. The imagination,

1 James, The Will to Believe, and Other Essays, p. 229.

2 See above, p. 446. " The examples which we take to prove other, things, if we
wish to prove the examples, we should take the other things to be their examples ;
for, as we always believe that the difficulty is in what we wish to prove, we find the
examples more clear, and they aid us in proving it. Thus when we wish to illustrate
a general principle, we must exhibit the particular rule of a case : but if we wish to
illustrate a particular case, we must begin with the general rule." — Pascal,
Thoughts, p. 232.

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 469

too, has its claim. On the scaffolding of formal plan or logical
movement there must, in a large proportion of material, be
erected a structure such as may be seen and felt, — realized
as it were by the senses ; and the amplification used for this
end must be of a heightening and vivifying character.1

i. Narrative and descriptive writing is the special field for
such imaginative amplification ; there the motive of the work,
largely, is to give life and concrete reality, and details are
observed or invented to this end.

Example of its Recognized Importance. — As a mere historical
event the discovery of the Wisconsin River might have been dispatched in
a few words ; Parkman chooses rather to make its importance more vividly
perceived by describing the scenery of the river as it must have looked to
the explorers, Joliet and Marquette : —

" The perplexed and narrow channel . . . brought them at last to the
portage ; where, after carrying their canoes a mile and a half over the
prairie and through the marsh, they launched them on the Wisconsin, bade
farewell to the waters that flowed to the St. Lawrence, and committed them-
selves to the current that was to bear them they knew not whither, — perhaps
to the Gulf of Mexico, perhaps to the South Sea or the Gulf of California.
They glided calmly down the tranquil stream, by islands choked with trees
and matted with entangling grapevines ; by forests, groves, and prairies, —
the parks and pleasure-grounds of a prodigal nature ; by thickets and
marshes and broad bare sand-bars ; under the shadowing trees, between
whose tops looked down from afar the bold brow of some woody bluff.
At night, the bivouac, — the canoes inverted on the bank, the flickering fire,
the meal of bison-flesh or venison, the evening pipes, and slumber beneath
the stars: and when in the morning they embarked again, the mist hung
on the river like a bridal veil ; then melted before the sun, till the glassy
water and the languid woods basked breathless in the sultry glare." a

1 " Invention determines that such events shall happen ; but in the case of the
finest work it attempts to go no further. It has proposed the scene : the power which
sets the scene like life before the inward eye, the graphic touch which makes it unfor-
gettable, belong, of right, to the imagination alone." — Article on Invention and
Imagination, Macmillarts Magazine, Vol. lvi, p. 275.

2 Parkman, Discovery of the Great West, p. 54. Not only the historian's sense
of its importance, but the pains he was at to get this imagined scene authentic, may
be indicated in the footnote appended to this paragraph of description : " The abova
traits of the scenery of the Wisconsin are taken from personal observation of the
river during midsummer."

470 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

2. In many cases where the idea is abstruse, or where it
needs to be keenly realized as a truth of life, some figure of
analogy or metaphor is employed to make it more apprehen-
sible to the imagination.

Example. — In the following the attempt is made, by figurative descrip-
tion, to make more apprehensible to imagination the mystery of our world
as a dwelling-place : —

" Although the world and life have in a sense become commonplace to
our experience, it is but in an external torpor; the true sentiment slumbers
within us ; and we have but to reflect on ourselves or our surroundings to
rekindle our astonishment. No length of habit can blunt our first surprise.
Of the world I have but little to say in this connection ; a few strokes shall
suffice. We inhabit a dead ember swimming wide in the blank of space,
dizzily spinning as it swims, and lighted up from several million miles away
by a more horrible hell-fire than was ever conceived by the theological
imagination. Yet the dead ember is a green, commodious dwelling-place ;
and the reverberation of this hell-fire ripens flower and fruit and mildly
warms us on summer eves upon the lawn. Far off on all hands other dead
embers, other flaming suns, wheel and race in the apparent void ; the near-
est is out of call, the farthest so far that the heart sickens in the effort
to conceive the distance. Shipwrecked seamen on the deep, though they
bestride but the truncheon of a boom, are safe and near at home compared
with mankind on its bullet. Even to us who have known no other, it seems
a strange, if not an appalling, place of residence." x

3. Incidents, anecdotes, apologues, are a frequent means
of illustrative amplification, especially in popular discourse.
They may be regarded as a free form of exemplification. As
to the management of them, they are to be regarded as a
story told not for its details but for its point ; which latter
must be so identified with the idea illustrated that the illus-
tration will not be remembered by itself. To make a dis-
course of stories that illustrate nothing or only insignificant
things is to degrade literature from a worthy use to a mere
entertainment.

l Stevenson, Lay Morals, Works, Vol. xxii, p. 552.

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHOLE. 471

Example. — In the article on Invention and Imagination, already quoted
from, the argument is thus concluded and summed up by apologue : —

"Are we, then, to conclude, from these considerations, that invention is
to be despised ? Far from it. In its own domain it is a power. We owe
the Arabian Nights almost to it alone. Gulliver, Robinson Crusoe, The
Pilgrim's Progress, could not have been produced without its active aid ;
nor, indeed, could some far mightier works, Paradise Lost or The Inferno.
But when it comes to making men and women, Centaurs and archangels,
breathe and live, invention either stands aside in modesty, or toils and fails.

" Solomon (so runs the apologue) was one day musing in his garden, at
the fifth hour of the day, when there appeared to him two Spirits, who
bowed down before him, and besought him to judge, by his wisdom, which
of them was the most powerful. Solomon consented, and commanded the
first Spirit to display his might. The Spirit took a piece of rock, and smote
with it upon a larger block ; again, and yet again, the blows fell ; and
slowly, as the Spirit toiled, the block assumed the figure of a man. And
the man sat motionless and moved not ; because he was of rock. Then
Solomon signed with his finger to the other Spirit. And he stepped
towards the man of rock, and breathed upon his eyes, and upon his feet,
and upon his heart. And the man rose up as if from sleep, and moved,
and bowed down at the feet of Solomon ; for he had become a living thing.
Then the first Spirit drooped and trembled; but the eyes of the other
shone like light, and he laughed so gloriously with triumph, that at the
sound of his laughter Solomon awoke ; and behold, it was a dream." 1

IV.

Accessories of Amplification. — Besides the direct means of
amplification, there are to be noted certain accessories that,
rightly employed, do much to give fulness and interest to the
thought.

Quotation. — For corroborating one's own statements, or for
giving them the pointedness of felicitous phrase, quotation
may be made a valuable accessory to amplification.2^ The
right use of it, however, is an art, which modern habits of

1 Macmillarts Magazine, Vol. lvi, p. 278.

2 " He that borrows the aid of an equal understanding doubles his own ; he that
uses that of his superior elevates his own to the stature of that he contemplates." —
Remark quoted from Burke, by Emerson, Works, Vol. viii, p. 170.

472 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

thought in literature have made somewhat exacting. One or
two features of the art we may here note.

i. To be rightly employed a quoted thought must be thor-
oughly assimilated in one's own thinking, and lie in the direct
line of it. If it is a little aside, or looks toward a different
conclusion — and all the more if only a little out of the way —
it confuses the unity and impairs the tissue of the work.

Example of the Fault. — The following quotations, especially the
one in verse, which occur in the midst of a passage inculcating painstaking
in composition, turn the thought aside and confuse it : —

" Our best poets have been equally painstaking. Ben Jonson declared,
contrary to the popular opinion, ' that a good poet 's made, as well as born.'
So, also, Wordsworth : —

' O many are the poets that are sown
By nature, men endowed with highest gifts,
The vision and the faculty divine ;
Yet wanting the accomplishment of verse,
Which in the docile season of their youth,
It was denied them to acquire through lack
Of culture, and the inspiring aid of books.' "

From this point onward the subject of painstaking, which has waited for
these irrelevant quotations, is resumed.

2. The modern sense of honesty in composition demands
that a quotation be given in the exact words, grammatical
construction, and punctuation of the author quoted ; the quo-
tation marks guarantee that. To this end, if any construc-
tion must be modified to suit the quotation, it must be the
writer's own.

Examples of the Fault. — The following, from a student essay,
involves the writer in an impossible grammatical construction : " Not very
far from my home the Charles, the

1 River ! that in silence wendest,'

flows onward, pursuing its course to the sea."

The following, from a similar source, compels the quoted expression to
use the wrong grammatical case : " Yet he did know that ' Christ and Him

i to
Vim

THE COMPOSITION AS A WHO IE. 473

crucified ' was now his all in all ; and this knowledge thrilled every fibre
of his body." If he had written, " Yet he did know that his all in all was
summed up in ' Christ and Him crucified,' " etc., the clash in grammar would
have been avoided without invading the accuracy of the quotation.

3. As to manner of quoting. If a quoted passage is a para-
graph by itself it should occupy a paragraph in the citation ;
if only a sentence or a phrase, it may be run into the text. —
Poetry should be quoted in lines, if more than one line is
quoted ; if only one line, or part of a line, the writer should
judge whether from its closer or looser connection, it will
better appear in the body of his own thought or in a line by
itself. — It is a pretty general and commendable custom now-
adays not to put quotation marks to well-known passages and
phrases, as from the Bible and Shakespeare ; they may be
treated as common stock of language.

Note. — In one case of quoting Matthew Arnold runs verse into prose,
in part, it would seem, to express his silent contempt for it as poetry:
" He may disobey such indications of the real law of our being, in other
spheres besides the sphere of conduct. He does disobey them, when he
sings a hymn like : My Jesus to know, and feel his blood flow, or, indeed,
like nine-tenths of our hymns, — or when he frames and maintains a blun-
dering and miserable constitution of society, — as well as when he commits
some plain breach of the moral law." l To quote the italicized^ passage as
poetry would be to dignify it unduly.

Allusion and Suggestion. — The amount of thought actually
conveyed through literature is not to be measured by what is
said, but by what the reader is made to think and feel. And
so beyond the definite impartations of language there is a
whole realm of vaguer elements : allusions, turns of phrase,
colorings of figure, subtleties of rhythm and assonance, which
have their effect in enriching both the thought and the emo-
tional power of the discourse. Sometimes an abrupt leaving-
off, or a silence about something that the reader may be left

1 Arnold, Literature and Dogma, p. 39.

474 INVENTION IN ITS ELEMENTS.

to think for himself, may amplify better than expression. All
these vague elements are beyond the sphere of rules or even
discipline ; they must be left to the native literary sense using
the powers of a full-stocked mind. Under various topics of
style they have already been sufficiently exemplified.

Note. — For Implicatory Words and Coloring, see above, pp. 87-94;
for Animus of Word and figure, pp. 102-106; for the suggestion of sound
in language, pp. 153-162; for picturing power of language, pp. 146-153.
A suggestive article on this subject is, The Vague Elements in Language^
Burton, Yale Lectures, p. 222.

BOOK V. THE LITERARY TYPES.

In our study of inventive processes hitherto, we have con-
templated the laws of invention as they avail for any and
every kind of material. But material, as it is of widely varied
kinds, must apply these laws variously. Each kind has its
own handling of theme, its own ordering or movement of
main ideas, its own natural current of amplification. Each
kind of material, therefore, according to its prevailing inven-
tive attitude, conforms to a specific literary type, by which
the whole composition is known and classified.

Four leading types thus take their rise ; named from the
processes concerned respectively in the production of them.
These, with the kinds of material with which they deal, are
as follows : —

Description ; invention dealing with observed objects.
Narration ; invention dealing with events.
Exposition ; invention dealing with generalized ideas.
Argumentation ; invention dealing with truths, and with
issues of conviction.

To the study of these the coming four chapters will be
devoted.

Though, as above said, a finished literary work is known
and classified under some one type, yet it is to be noted that
these types are combined in a great many ways, one helping
and reinforcing another. Some of the most important of

475

476 THE LITERARY TYPES.

these combinations will be pointed out. Beyond this, how
ever, and in general beyond the study of the unmixec
types, it is not in the scope of a rhetorical text-book to go,
The completed literary forms call for a more advanced course
of investigation.

CHAPTER XIV.
DESCRIPTION.

Beyond doubt the most primitive and natural impulse to
literary utterance manifests itself in men's effort to report
what they observe in the world around them. This impulse
is equally spontaneous whether the objects observed be at
rest or in action, whether persons and things or events ; and
thus this simplest inventive effort results in two types of dis-
course, description and narration ; types generally found in
some proportion together, but distinct in principle, and there-
fore needing to be studied separately.

Definition of Description. — Description is the portrayal of
concrete objects, material or spiritual, by means of language.

Some points of this definition need special explication.
Observe : —

i. Definition centres in portrayal. This is a painter's term,
and represents an analogous thing, — picturing. Merely to
enumerate the parts and qualities of an object would be giv-
ing information, and for some purposes this would be enough ;
but this would be a prosy thing, a catalogue, a report, not a
description. To describe is to enlist the imagination in the
work, making the reader see or otherwise realize the object
with something of the writer's vigor of conception. This
means making a kind of word-picture, wherein is something
answering to the draughtsmanship, the coloring, the light
and shade, the perspective, that give artistry to an actual
picture.

2. The objects with which description deals are concrete,
that is, not perceived as members of a class, and by class

477

478 THE LITERARY TYPES.

characteristics, but as unique objects, and by individual char
acteristics. In this respect description is the contrast tc
exposition, as will be more fully explained later. The signifi-
cance of this distinction here is, that description, as soon as
the object's class is named, leaves thought of this, and seeks
to give the traits, not wherein the object is like others, but
wherein it is different, wherein it is individually impressive.

3. The range of objects amenable to description is so great
as to include not only objects of sense, as persons and things,
which are adapted to portrayal, but spiritual objects, as for
instance character, states of mind, and the like, which con-
tain little or no pictorial suggestiveness. This fact makes it
important, especially in the case of the latter class of objects,
to know what style or treatment is most realizable, most like
portrayal.

In following out the requirements of this definition we
encounter difficulties of a peculiar kind, which make it neces-
sary in description to rely not only on its intrinsic principles,
but equally on various accessories of description. To these
two subjects the chapter is mainly devoted.

I. THE UNDERLYING PRINCIPLES.

The distinguishing principles of description rise from its
analogy to the picturing idea. A picture produces its effect
as a whole, and produces it at once. Toward a like end
description aims, so far as its somewhat intractable material
will allow. Accordingly its theme, or working-idea, is not
formulated but diffused through the course and details of the
whole 1 ; its logical framework, or plan, appears as little like
a framework, as much like a vital unity, as possible ; its texture
of amplification works to a homogeneous scale and color-
scheme, in the effort after a self-consistent sum of impression,
l For the descriptive theme, see above, p. 426.

DESCRIPTION. 479

Thus from beginning to end the construction lines of the
composition, though present, are hidden and unobtrusive,
being fused, as it were, in the glow and spirit of the por-
trayal.

Problems of Material and Handling. — The difficulties of
description are such as rise from making some beautiful
thing out of unplastic material and with an unwieldy work-
ing-tool. The working-tool is language, employed to do what
more naturally belongs to the brush or the chisel. The mate-
rial is just the multitude of parts and details that we are
aware of in contemplating any object. In the object as
observed all these, great and small, are in perfect union and
relation ; but when it comes to making a word-picture, they
have to be taken up one by one and so named or insinuated
as to create a realizable image in the reader's imagination.1
It is evident that to do this efficiently requires no small skill ;
it is in fact one of the acknowledged triumphs of literature.

Two of the hardest problems that confront us in this kind
of work may here be mentioned.

i. The Problem of Selection. — This problem presents diffi-
culty on two sides. On the one hand, the number of details
belonging to any object, all seeming to clamor for recogni-
tion, is very great. On the other hand, to enumerate more
than a very limited number crowds and confuses, not vivifies,
the portrayal. It is as imperative, then, that the writer omit
or suppress details as that he express them ; he must know
what aids the life of his picture, what clogs and stifles it.

As regards copiousness of selection, then, a safe rule is,

1 " Marble, paint, and language, the pen, the needle, and the brush, all have their
grossnesses, their ineffable impotences, their hours, if I may so express myself, of
insubordination. It is the work and it is a great part of the delight of any artist to
contend with these unruly tools, and now by brute energy, now by witty expedient,
to drive and coax them to effect his will." — Stevenson, A Note on Realism,
Works, Vol. xxii, p. 270,

480 THE LITERARY TYPES.

choose the smallest number of details that will adequately
present your design ; but see that they make up in impor-
tance and character-giving quality for what they sacrifice in
number. To this end they should be chosen with reference
to their power on the imagination ; if you cannot tell the
whole, tell that most outstanding and distinctive thing which
is likeliest to make the reader think the whole.

2. The Problem of Total Effect. — This problem rises from the
fact that the describing must take time, must give details of
the object in succession, while the object itself, being at rest,
must produce its impression all at once. This is the disad-
vantage of language as a picturing medium ; it has to go on
continually to new things, and yet the things it has left must,
for the integrity of the picture, remain as vivid as ever.1

To meet this difficulty, it is essential that the description
be modelled on a well-marked basis of structure ; there must
be, so worded as to concentrate attention, a core or framework
of description, to which, as he goes along, the reader's memory
and imagination may continually refer, thus building a body
of details around it. In this way the character or scheme
of the portrayal may give interrelation to the details, so that
they may be realized together.

1 " How do we obtain a clear idea of a thing in space ? First we observe its sepa-
rate parts, then the union of these parts, and finally the whole. Our senses perform
these various operations with such amazing rapidity as to make them seem but one.
This rapidity is absolutely essential to our obtaining an idea of the whole, which is
nothing more than the result of the conception of the parts and of their connection
with each other. Suppose now that the poet should lead us in proper order from one
part of the object to the other ; suppose he should succeed in making the connection
of these parts perfectly clear to us ; how much time will he have consumed ?

" The details, which the eye takes in at a glance, he enumerates slowly one by one,
and it often happens that, by the time he has brought us to the last, we have forgot-
ten the first. Yet from these details we are to form a picture. When we look at an
object the various parts are always present to the eye. It can run over them again and
again. The ear, however, loses the details it has heard, unless memory retain them.
And if they be so retained, what pains and effort it costs to recall their impressions
in the proper order and with even the moderate degree of rapidity necessary to the
obtaining of a tolerable idea of the whole." — Lessing, Laocoon, p. 102.

DESCRIPTION. 481

II.

Mechanism of Description. — However disguised, and how-
ever variously proportioned, there must be a mechanical ele-
ment, a matter-of-fact structure, underlying any portrayal ; it
must be there, to work its purpose and be felt, whether the
reader consciously analyzes it or not. The following are its
cardinal stages.

i. Determining the Point of View. — Before the description
is begun, the writer must have determined in his mind from
what point the object is to be contemplated ; and to this
imagined point he must hold throughout, or at least not shift
it without due warning. On this point of view depends the
scale of the description. A river fifteen rods away would not
have been described as " like a silver thread running through
the landscape," if the writer had been mindful where he was
standing. The distance, near or remote, regulates the num-
ber and minuteness of details, the masses of color, shading,
and the like ; the relative position to the object regulates its
shape and perspective, and in general the impression it
makes. The whole composition is articulated and balanced
by the point of view.

Examples. — i. The description of the continent of Europe, quoted
from Ruskin on pp. 168, 169, above, is very careful in its choice of point of
view. The writer wishes first to describe very general features of scenery,
mountain ranges, and vegetation, such features as a bird would see ; so,
having mentioned the stork and swallow, he says : " Let us, for a moment,
try to raise ourselves even above the level of their flight, and imagine the
Mediterranean lying beneath us like an irregular lake," etc. Turn to the
description, and see what kind and scale of details this point of view makes
visible. Having thus traversed the continent from south to north, he then
proposes a nearer point of view : " And having once traversed in thought this
gradation of the zoned iris of the earth in all its material vastness, let us go
down nearer to it, and watch the parallel change in the belt of animal life,"
etc. This enables him to describe the animals, the men, and the works of
men, as he is in imagination near enough to see the more particular details.

482 THE LITERARY TYPES.

2. In the following, Stevenson : chooses not only a point of literal view
but a time in his life and a time in the season of the year, to describe a cer
tain river. Observe how each point influences the description : —

" I have named, among many rivers that make music in my memory,
that dirty Water of Leith. Often and often I desire to look upon it again ;
and the choice of a point of view is easy to me. It should be at a certain
water-door, embowered in shrubbery. The river is there dammed back for
the service of the flour-mill just below, so that it lies deep and darkling,
and the sand slopes into brown obscurity with a glint of gold ; and it has
but newly been recruited by the borrowings of the snuff-mill just above,
and these, tumbling merrily in, shake the pool to its black heart, fill it
with drowsy eddies, and set the curded froth of many other mills solemnly
steering to and fro upon the surface. Or so it was when I was young ; for
change, and the masons, and the pruning-knife, have been busy ; and if I
could hope to repeat a cherished experience, it must be on many and
impossible conditions. I must choose, as well as the point of view, a cer-
tain moment in my growth, so that the scale may be exaggerated, and the
trees on the steep opposite side may seem to climb to heaven, and the sand
by the water-door, where I am standing, seem as low as Styx. And I must
choose the season also, so that the valley may be brimmed like a oup with
sunshine and the songs of birds ; — and the year of grace, so that when I
turn to leave the riverside I may find the old manse and its inhabitants
unchanged."

• •

It is not always necessary that the point of view be explic-
itly mentioned. What is of more importance than the men-
tion, is that the details should be so graduated to one point
of view that the reader may instinctivelyy^?/ his position with
reference to the object. It is, after all, in this medium of
portrayal, not a point of view but a point of thought, from
which, according to the data supplied, the reader has to
imagine a self-consistent picture.

Note. — In the following, notice how the whole impression, with its
scale and appearance of details, is determined by the observer's position,
assumed casually as a point of view : —

" The little square that surrounds it [the cathedral of Chartres] is deplor-
ably narrow, and you flatten your back against the opposite houses in the

1 Memories and Portraits, Works, Vol. xiii, p. 241.

DESCRIPTION. 483

vain attempt to stand off and survey the towers. The proper way to look
at them would be to go up in a balloon and hang poised, face to face with
them, in the blue air. There is, however, perhaps an advantage in being
forced to stand so directly under them, for this position gives you an over-
whelming impression of their height. I have seen, I suppose, churches as
beautiful as this one, but I do not remember ever to have been so fasci-
nated by superpositions and vertical effects. The endless upward reach of
the great west front, the clear, silvery tone of its surface, the way three or
four magnificent features are made to occupy its serene expanse, its sim-
plicity, majesty, and dignity — these things crowd upon one's sense with a
force that makes the act of vision seem for the moment almost all of life."1

This point of thought is as real in the delineation of spirit-
ual objects as of material. It is another name for the attitude
that we assume, whether deliberately or through limitation,
toward an object ; as when we view a character through crit-
ical or sympathetic eyes, or as when we judge a mental
endowment from the standing-point of skill or its opposite.

Note. — A significant example of the mental point of view is seen in
Browning's poem How it strikes a Contemporary, which is a description
of a poet as seen and judged in Spain by an ordinary man of the people
ignorant of poetry. To him a poet, with his clear-seeing, inquiring eyes,
was a man who took note of everything and reported to the king : —

" He took such cognizance of men and things,
If any beat a horse, you felt he saw ;
If any cursed a woman, he took note ;
Yet stared at nobody, — you stared at him,
And found, less to your pleasure than surprise,
He seemed to know you and expect as much." 2

Here the point of view brings out an unusual element, though not an
unreal one, of the poet-character.

2. Making the Nucleus of Description. — Having determined
his point of view, and with it the general scale of the por-
trayal, the writer's next step is to give in a brief outline the
most comprehensive or characterizing trait of the object

1 James, Portraits of Places, p. 123.

2 Robert BROWNING, Poems (Cambridge edition), p. 336.

484 THE LITERARY TYPES.

described, as a kind of core or framework for the whole pic
ture. Round this the reader may in imagination group tru
various details as they come up.

The kind of features that constitute such nucleus are : in a
material object, the name of its class, its shape, size, position,
or some indication of what it is like ; in a spiritual object,
the predominating motive, summary of qualities, character-
izing trait. These, according to the tone of the description,
may be recounted in a matter-of-fact way, or by figure and
epithet.

Examples. — i. Victor Hugo's description of the battle of Waterloo
is modelled on the following elaborate nucleus of description : —

" Those who wish to form a clear idea of the battle of Waterloo, need
only imagine a capital A laid on the ground. The left stroke of the A is
the Nivelles road, the right one the Genappe road, while the cross of the A
is the sunken road from Ohain to Braine l'Alleud. The top of the A is
Mont Saint Jean; Wellington is there ; the left-hand lower point is Hougo-
mont ; Reille is there with Jerome Bonaparte ; the right-hand lower point
is la Belle Alliance; Napoleon is there. A little below the point where
the cross of the A meets the right stroke, is La Haye Sainte ; in the centre
of this cross is the precise point where the final battle-word was spoken.
It is here that the lion is placed, the involuntary symbol of the supreme
heroism of the Imperial Guard.

" The triangle contained at the top of the A between the two strokes
and the cross, is the plateau of Mont Saint Jean. The dispute for this
plateau was the whole battle."1

2. Green's famous description of the character of Queen Elizabeth is
modelled on the following antithetic nucleus, which, from one point or
another, gives color to all the details of character and policy: —

" She'was at once the daughter of Henry and of Anne Boleyn. From
her father she inherited her frank and hearty address, her love of popularity
and of free intercourse with the people, her dauntless courage and her
amazing self-confidence. Her harsh, man-like voice, her impetuous will,
her pride, her furious outbursts of anger came to her with her Tudor
blood. . . . But strangely in contrast with the violent outlines of her
Tudor temper stood the sensuous, self-indulgent nature she derived from
Anne Boleyn. Splendor and pleasure were with Elizabeth the very air she

1 Hugo, Les Miscrablcs, Cosette, Book i, Chap, iv,

DESCRIPTION. 485

breathed. Her delight was to move in perpetual progresses from castle to
castle through a series of gorgeous pageants, fanciful and extravagant as a
caliph's dream.-" l

In cases where the description is not the main element of
the composition, as for instance in those bits of portrayal
found imbedded in works of history or fiction, the description
is generally carried no farther than this nucleus ; to which,
however, is sometimes added a more detailed account of the
part or quality that is of special significance for the main
work.

Examples. — i. Carlyle thus summarizes the environs of Zorndorf,
where Frederick is to fight one of his battles : " Such is the poor moorland
tract of Country; Zorndorf the centre of it, — where the Battle is likely to
be: — Zorndorf and environs a bare quasi-island among these woods;
extensive bald crown of the landscape, girt with a frizzle of firwoods all
round."2 To this outline, as important for his military operations, he adds
a more detailed account of the swamps and small streams around.

2. The following condensed description of a person, " the brown old
seaman, with the sabre-cut," is a fair specimen of the kind of description
introduced into works of fiction : " I remember him as if it were yesterday,
as he came plodding to the inn door, his sea-chest following behind him in
a hand-barrow ; a tall, strong, heavy, nut-brown man; his tarry pigtail fall-
ing over the shoulders of his soiled blue coat ; his hands ragged and scarred,
with black, broken nails ; and the sabre-cut across one cheek, a dirty, livid
white." 3 So much of description is sufficient to arouse imagination and
interest, and this in fact is its object.

3. Adding the Amplifying Matter. — The nature of descrip-
tive amplification and the manner of its arrangement depend
largely on the object of the portrayal, and whether it is made
for information or for the imagination. Its various aspects
will be taken up in the next section. One remark, however,
may be made here. The ruling aim is to make the details
homogeneous. They should have a keeping with each other

1 Green, A Short History of the English People, Chap, vii, Section 3.

2 Carlylk, Frederick the Great, Vol. vi, p. 381.
8 Stevenson, Treasure Island, Chap. i.

486 THE LITERARY TYPES.

and with the tone and key of discourse, so that all may wor
together to produce one harmonious effect. An incongruou
feature is to the imagination what a false progression is ii
music ; it destroys the artistic illusion.

It is in this respect that description is invention. Follow
ing truth and nature, as it does, yet it is selected truth, trutl
moulded into organic and speaking character by the point o
view, the core of suggestion, and the imaginative color in|
that controls the whole.

• Note. — Here the key of words becomes significant (see above, p. 104)
and the level of language must be conformed to the elevation of the object
To describe a dignified object or action in vulgar terms, or with occasiona
lapse into vulgarism, on the one hand ; to bedizen a simple or delicate sub
ject with fine writing, on the other; is equally an offense against thai
descriptive art which so depends on an unerringly guided imagination.1

III.

Subdual of Descriptive Details. — By this term, subdual, as con-
noting the seriousness of the problem, we may designate the
management of the numerous and loosely connected details
that go to make up a body of description. To the writer
these details come up in succession, as a catalogue ; they are
to reach the reader as an organic unity. The problem, as
already intimated,2 is mainly one of parsimony : how to effect
the result with the fewest particulars possible, and how to
make each particular count, in its place, for the most possible.

1 The following passage suggests the contrast in effect that could easily be mad
by employing more prosaic or vulgarized terms. It supposes Homer's heroes fight-
ing naked rather than in armor. " Instead of the clash of helmets, and the rushing
of chariots, and the whizzing of spears, and the glancing of swords, and the cleaving
of shields, and the piercing of breast-plates, why not represent the Greeks and Tro-
jans like two savage tribes, tugging and tearing, and kicking and biting, and gnash
ing, foaming, grinning, and gouging, in all the poetry of martial nature, unencumbered
with gross, prosaic, artificial arms ; an equal superfluity to the natural warrior, and
his natural poet?" — Byron, on Bowles's Strictures on the Life and Writings of
Pofe, Literary Pamphlets, Vol. ii, p. 189.

2 See above, p. 479, 1.

DESCRIPTION. 487

According to the result in view, and the exactions of the
object, three types of description may be distinguished, cov-
ering the various ways of subduing details.

i. Description by Charted Order. — By this is meant descrip-
tion that follows the visible lines of the object, as if it were
mapped out from part to part ; thus going over the ground in
the order suggested by nature.

Such description seeks the matter-of-fact result of giving
information ; it is only subordinately concerned with making
the reader imagine, because the object is one of which he
wishes to know parts, dimensions, materials, relations in
space. It applies to common objects of nature and art :
landscapes, tracts of country, buildings, pictures, machinery,
and the like. It will not bear great reduction of details, for
these are a part of the information ; it is at best a catalogue,
arranged according to the scheme of nature ; and its unitary
effect depends largely on accentuating this scheme.

Examples. — i. The description of Chartres cathedral, of which the
point of view is indicated on p. 482, follows this order and type as far
as can be done from its point of view ; naturally, too, it begins at the
ground and goes upward as one would do standing directly at the base
of the edifice.

" The doors are rather low, as those of the English cathedrals are apt to
be, but (standing three together) are set in a deep framework of sculpture
— rows of arching grooves, filled with admirable little images, standing
with their heels on each other's heads. The church, as it now exists,
except the northern tower, dates from the middle of the thirteenth cen-
tury, and these closely-packed figures are full of the grotesqueness of
the period. Above the triple portals is a vast round-topped window, in
three divisions, of the grandest dimensions and the stateliest effect. Above
this window is a circular aperture, of huge circumference, with a double
row of sculptured spokes radiating from its center and looking on its lofty
field of stone as expansive and symbolic as if it were the wheel of Time
itself. Higher still is a little gallery with a delicate balustrade, supported
on a beautiful cornice and stretching across the front from tower to tower;
and above this is a range of niched statues of kings — fifteen, I believe, in
number. Above the statues is a gable, with an image of the Virgin and

4SS THE LITERARY TYPES.

Child on its front, and another of Christ on its apex. In the relation of
all these parts there is such a high felicity that while on the one side the
eye rests on a great many large blanks there is no approach on the other
to poverty." 1

So far as to the facade ; when the towers are described accessories of
metaphor and personification are resorted to.

2. The following description of a face, though its nucleus sentence indi-
cates a description by impression, is mainly on this charted order : —

" He thought, as she knelt there, that he had never seen how lovely and
how charged with mystery her features were; the dark large eyes full on
the brows ; the proud line of a straight nose in right measure to the bow
of the lips ; reposeful red lips, shut, and their curve of the slumber-smile at
the corners. Her forehead was broad ; the chin of a sufficient firmness to
sustain that noble square ; the brows marked by a soft thick brush to the
temples ; her black hair plainly drawn along her head to the knot, revealed
by the mantilla fallen on her neck."*2

2. Description by Impression. — In this kind of description
the details are chosen and massed according to the impression
they are adapted to make on the reader's imagination. As
the details are selected with reference to some characterizing
quality common to them all, they are thus congruous with one
another, and work together to heighten the vividness of the
picture.3

Note. — Professor Pryde's illustration, taken from a familiar scene of
nature, will make this method of choosing details clear : —

" As an instance, let us suppose that a writer is out in the country on a
morning toward the end of May, and wishes to describe the multitudinous
objects which delight his senses. First of all, he ascertains that the gen-
eral impressions produced on his mind by the summer landscape are the
ideas of luxuriance, brightness, and joy. He then proceeds to describe in

1 James, Portraits of Places, p. 123.

2 Meredith, Diana of the Crossways, p. 84.

8 " In studying any interesting scene, let your mind look carefully at all the details.
You will then become conscious of one or more effects or impressions that have been
made upon you. Discover what these impressions are. Then group and describe in
order the details which tend to produce each of the impressions. You will then find
that you have comprised in your description all the important details of the scene."
— Pryde, Highways of Literature, p. 158.

DESCRIPTION. 4&9

these groups the details which produce these impressions. He first takes
up the luxuriant features : the springing young crops of grain completely
hiding the red soil ; the rich, living carpet of grass and flowers covering the
meadow; the hedge-rows on each side of the way, in their bright summer
green ; the trees bending gracefully under the full weight of their foliage ;
and the wild plants, those waifs of nature, flourishing everywhere, smother-
ing the woodland brook, filling up each scar and crevice in the rock, and
making a rich fringe along the side of every highway and footpath. He
then descants upon the brightness of the landscape : the golden sun-
shine ; the pearly dew-drops hanging on the tips of every blade of grass,
and sparkling in the morning rays ; the clusters of daisies dappling the
pasture-land ; the dandelion glowing under the very foot of the traveller;
the chestnut trees, like great candelabra, stuck all over with white lights,
lighting up the woodlands; and lilacs, laburnums, and hawthorns in full
flower, making the farmer's garden one mass of variegated blossom. And
last of all, he can dwell upon the joy that is abroad on the face of the earth :
the little birds so full of one feeling that they can only thrill it forth in the
same delicious monotone ; the lark bounding into the air, as if eager and
quivering to proclaim his joy to the whole world; the humble-bee humming
his satisfaction as he revels among the flowers ; and the myriads of insects
floating in the air, and poising, and darting with drowsy buzz through the
floods of golden sunshine. Thus we see that, by this habit of generalizing,
the mind can grasp the details of almost any scene."

As in this treatment of details the writer becomes aware of
his impression by interrogating his own imagination, so the
details that thus become vivid to him are such as are adapted
to awaken the reader's imagination. Strictly speaking, this
describes not the object but qualities of the object ; a legiti-
mate portrayal, however, because it is qualities, vitalized
traits, that are concerned.1

1 It is much the fashion nowadays to inveigh against multiplying detail in descrip-
tion ; and indeed this is a great peril in the hands of unimaginative writers. But sup-
pose the masses of detail are strongly controlled by their key of impression? And
suppose the impression one wishes to convey be, for instance, bewilderment and con-
fusion, may not a tumbled wealth of detail be accurately in place? One is tempted to
think this impression was largely in Ruskin's mind when he described the interior of
St. Mark's (Kuskin, Stones of Venice, Vol. ii, p. 78). The following passage from
Henry James recognizes a similar object as legitimate: "Indeed nothing could well
be more difficult than to add up the items — the column would be altogether too
long. One may have dreamed of turning the glow — if glow it be — of one's lantern

490 THE LITERARY TYPES.

The subjects treated may be the same as have been speci-
fied under the former; but the purpose in view makes the
description more intense and pictorial, hence more congenial
to the higher reaches of literature. It is in fact this kind of
description that prevails in poetry and fiction.

Examples. — In the following description of a house, all the details go
to bring out two impressions : (i) bulging out; (2) cleanliness: —

" At length we stopped before a very old house bulging out over the
road; a house with long low lattice windows bulging out still farther, and
beams with carved heads on the ends bulging out too, so that I fancied the
whole house was leaning forward, trying to see who was passing on the
narrow pavement below. It was quite spotless in its cleanliness. The old-
fashioned brass-knocker on the low arched door, ornamented with carved
garlands of fruit and flowers, twinkled like a star ; the two stone steps
descending to the door were as white as if they had been covered with fair
linen ; and all the angles and corners, and carvings and mouldings, and
quaint little panes of glass, and quainter little windows, though as old as
the hills, were as pure as any snow that ever fell upon the hills." x

Here, though quite a list of details is given, all are bound together into
homogeneous effect by their relation to the double impression.

2. In the following, the key to the whole description is given in the one
word ruinous, which imparts character to every detail : —

" Then rode Geraint into the castle court,
His charger trampling many a prickly star
Of sprouted thistle on the broken stones.
He look'd and saw that all was ruinous.
Here stood a shatter'd archway plumed with fern ;
And here had fall'n a great part of a tower,
Whole, like a crag that tumbles from the cliff,
And like a crag was gay with wilding flowers :
And high above a piece of turret stair,
Worn by the feet that now were silent, wound
Bare to the sun, and monstrous ivy-stems
Claspt the gray walls with hairy-fibred arms,
And suck'd the joining of the stones, and look'd
A knot, beneath, of snakes, aloft, a grove." 2

on each successive facet of the jewel ; but, after all, it may be success enough if a con-
fusion of brightness be the result." — James, Essays in London and Elsewhere,
p. 26. ! Dickens, David Copperfield, Chap. xv.

2 Tennyson, The Marriage of Geraint, 11. 312-325.

description: 491

The descriptions that have become renowned in literature are mostly of
this impression type. Two such may here be mentioned : Shakespeare's
description of Dover cliff, King Lear, Act iv, Scene 6, which impresses
merely its dizzy height ; and Shelley's description of the ravine near Petrella,
The Cenci, Act hi, Scene i, which impresses its terrific gloom.

3. Portrayal without Detail. — Of any common object the
great mass of characteristics is already so familiar that the
object has only to be named to call to the reader's mind an
image of something that he recollects from his own observa-
tion. If then the part or quality especially concerned can be
named by some live word or phrase or figure, the whole matter
of detail becomes superfluous.

Strictly speaking, this is not description at all ; it is sugges-
tion. But the thing described must be in the writer's mind
and heart, so intense and inspiring that he can see it in solu-
tion in one vivid trait. To find this, and to fit to it the one
apt word, is perhaps the rarest power in literature.1

Examples. — 1. A good illustration of this kind of portrayal applied to
objects of sight is found in a series of stanzas in Tennyson's Palace of
Art, descriptive of the arras paintings of its rooms : —

" One seem'd all dark and red — a tract of sand,
And some one pacing there alone,
Who paced for ever in a glimmering land,
Lit with a low large moon.

" One show'd an iron coast and angry waves.
You seem'd to hear them climb and fall
And roar rock-thwarted under bellowing caves,
Beneath the windy wall.

" And one, a full-fed river winding slow
By herds upon an endless plain,
The ragged rims of thunder brooding low,
With shadow-streaks of rain.

1 Of Coleridge's Ancient Mariner Lowell says : " And how picturesque it is in
the proper sense of the word. I know nothing like it. There is not a description in
it. It is all picture. Descriptive poets generally confuse, us with multiplicity of
detail ; we cannot see their forest for the trees ; but Coleridge never errs in this way.
With instinctive tact he touches the right chord of association, and is satisfied, as we
also are." — Lowell, Prose Works, Vol. vi, p. 74.

492 THE LITERARY TYPES.

" And one, the reapers at their sultry toil.
In front they bound the sheaves. Behind
Were realms of upland, prodigal in oil,
And hoary to the wind.

11 And one a foreground black with stones and slags,
Beyond, a line of heights, and higher
All barr'd with long white cloud the scornful crags,
And highest, snow and fire.

" And one, an English home — gray twilight pour'd
On dewy pastures, dewy trees,
Softer than sleep — all things in order stored,
A haunt of ancient Peace." 1

2. This kind of portrayal is equally good for objects of sound ; as in
the following: "The rush of the water, and the booming of the mill, bring
a dreamy deafness, which seems to heighten the peacefulness of the scene.
They are like a great curtain of sound, shutting one out from the world
beyond." 2

And the following, wherein both sight and sound are vividly indicated :
"The stars were clear, colored, and jewel-like, but not frosty. A faint sil-
very vapour stood for the Milky Way. All around me the black fir-points
stood upright and stock still. By the whiteness of the pack-saddle, I could
see Modestine walking round and round at the length of her tether; I could
hear her steadily munching at the sward ; but there was not another sound,
save the indescribable quiet talk of the runnel over the stones." 3 This is
descriptive of a still night in the open air.

The objects to which portrayal of this type is adapted are,
first of all, such as make direct and literal appeal to the
senses, — common objects of sight and sound. But in a
figurative way, too, it is adapted to objects which, because
the literal description of them is apt to be both tedious and
futile, need as it were to be translated into sensible image.
Such are states and moods of mind, experiences, traits of
character, emotions, and the like. In the deepest sense these
are indescribable ; they can be made real only to those to
whom they are native, and then only by the touch which

1 Tennyson, Works (Globe edition), p. 45.

2 George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, Chap. i.

8 Stevenson, Travels with a Donkey, Works, Vol. xii, p. 221.

DESCRIPTION. 493

recalls, not by a labored history. The only resource for them
is to work for brevity, and to work in the concrete and visible,
— which is virtually another way of saying portrayal without
detail.1

II. ACCESSORIES OF DESCRIPTION.

In spite of all care in selection and grouping, description
remains the kind of discourse most liable to be tedious, on
account of the difficulty of managing a multitude of loosely
connected details. Some ways of subduing this intractable
material we have just noticed. The same need of subdual it
is that gives importance to the accessories of description,
which, though auxiliary, belong to the essential working-tools
of the art.

Continuing the analogy of the painting art, we may say
that while the mechanism of description supplies the drawing,
the perspective, the composition, the accessories of description
are resorted to for that coloring in which reside the life and
finish of the work. We may classify these accessories under
three somewhat comprehensive heads.

Avails of Imaginative Diction. — That descriptive language
is heightened language, because imagination is in it grasping
spontaneously after all the picturing power of which language
is capable, has been abundantly intimated in the part of our
book relating to diction.2 The presence of this imaginative

1 " A few words will often paint the precise state of emotion as faithfully as the
most voluminous essay ; and in this department condensation and brevity are to be
carefully studied. Conduct us to the cavern, light the torch, and startle and awe us
by what you reveal, — but if you keep us all day in the cavern, the effect is lost, and
our only feeling is that of Impatience and desire to get away.". — Bulwer-Lytton,
On Art in Fiction, Pamphlets and Sketches, p. 343.

2 For elevated diction and its motive, see p. 140, above ; for approach of prose to
poetry, p. 163 j for the Imaginative type of prose diction, p. 168; for descriptive
terms as aid to vigorous condensation, p.

494 THE LITERARY TYPES.

element, in fact, produces a type of prose distinctly approach
ing, in word and imagery, to poetry. Of this, however, noth
ing further need be said here ; except to mention anc
exemplify some of the practical ways in which peculiarities
of diction may aid the mechanism of description.

Graphic Uses of Figures. — Figurative language has of course
its beautifying uses as it works in with the general heightened
tissue of description ; but more deeply than this, as the word
graphic is here used to express, it renders practical support to
the drawing and body of the portrayal. Let us trace this in
a few prominent cases.

i. Simile is especially a practical figure; it is much
employed in making the nucleus of description, to give an
outline for succeeding amplification ; also where the descrip-
tion stops with the nucleus.

Examples. — i. The following similes (here italicized) illustrate Car-
lyle's care in constructing a realizable basis for an extended description of
a country : —

" Schlesien, what we call Silesia, lies in elliptic shape, spread on the top
of Europe, partly girt with mountains, like the crown or crest to that part
of the Earth; — highest table-land of Germany or of the Cisalpine Coun-
tries ; and sending rivers into all the seas. ... It leans sloping, as we
hinted, to the East and to the North ; a long curved buttress of mountains
( ' Riesengebirge, Giant Mountains,' is their best-known name in foreign
countries) holding it up on the South and West sides. This Giant-Moun-
tain Range . . . shapes itself like a bill-hook (or elliptically, as was said ) :
handle and hook together may be some 200 miles in length. ... A very
pretty Ellipsis, or irregular Oval, on the summit of the European Con-
tinent ; — ' like the palm of a left-hand well stretched-out, with the Riesen-
gebirge for thumb ! ' said a certain Herr to me, stretching out his arm in
that fashion towards the northwest. Palm, well stretched-out, measuring
250 miles; and the cross-way 100." x

2. The following, from the description of Rab, condenses the successive
qualities into a series of comparisons : " He was brindled and grey, like
Rubislaw granite ; his hair short, hard, and close, like a lion's ; his body

1 Carlyle, Frederick the Great, Vol. iv, pp. 1-3.

description: 495

thick-set like a little bull — a sort of compressed Hercules of a dog."1
The comparisons are partly literal, partly figurative.

2. Metaphor and personification are valuable for the sug-
gested action and human interest that they impart to an
object or scene otherwise inert. The need of such enlivening
is inherent in descriptive objects, — a part of their native
untowardness.2

Example. — In the following, which describes the taking away of a long
venerated bell, the ascribing of life to the bell intensifies the description to
a poignant pathos : —

" And there before our eyes, obeying the order of the Commissioners,
the workmen were taking that bell away forever — because the Comtat
was a part of France again, and the power of the Popes over Avignon was
gone!

"In the dead silence we could hear the clicking of pincers and the
tapping of hammers and the grating of files ; and then a single sharp sweet
clang — which must have come when the bell, cut loose from its fastenings,
was lifted away. Having it thus free from the setting where it had rested
for so long a while, the workmen brought it to the battlements ; and in plain
sight of all of us, down the whole great depth of the Palace walls, lowered
it by a cord to the ground. And the poor little bell, glittering like a jewel
in the sunshine, tinkled faintly and mournfully at every jar and jerk of the
cord as though it knew that its end had come : now giving out, as it
swayed and the clapper struck within, a sweet clear sound ; and again, as
it jarred against the wall, a sound so harsh and so sad that to hear it cut
one's heart. All the way down those great walls it uttered thus its sad
little plaint ; until we seemed to feel as though it were a child some one
was hurting ; as though it were a living soul. And I know that the pain
that was in my heart was in the hearts of all that crowd. The silence, save
for the mourning of the bell, was so deep that one could have heard the
flight of a butterfly — and through it, now and then, would come from some
one a growling whisper: ' Liberty and the Rights of Man are all very well,
but they might have left our little bell alone ! ' " 8

1 Urown, Rab and his Friends, in Spare Hours, Vol. i, p. 30. There is a very
interesting analysis of this description, Burton, Yale Lectures, pp. 110-112.

'2 See above, p. 479. The use of narrative action is closely akin to this in object ;
see below, p. 503.

8 Gras, 77ie Reds of the Midi, p. 76,

496 THE LITERARY TYPES.

3. Antithesis, in its broader sense of contrast between
situations or between appearance and reality, is valuable for
accentuating what is distinctive or centrally significant in a
complex object of description.1 It is an effective instrument in
portraying such objects as character and scenes of mental or
moral significance, being a means of both pointedness and
interpretation.

Examples. — The antithetic nucleus or basis for Green's description of
Queen Elizabeth's character has already been given on p. 484.

The following owes its depth of pathos and moral sentiment entirely to
its contrasted scenes : " There was a certain elderly gentleman who lived
in a court of the Temple, and was a great judge and lover of port wine.
Every day, he dined at his club and drank his bottle or two of port wine,
and every night came home to the Temple and went to bed in his lonely
chambers. This had gone on many years without variation, when one
night he had a fit on coming home, and fell and cut his head deep, but
partly recovered and groped about in the dark to find the door. When he
was afterwards discovered, dead, it was clearly established by the marks of
his hands about the room that he must have done so. Now, this chanced
on the night of Christmas Eve, and over him lived a young fellow who had
sisters and young country-friends, and who gave them a little party that
night, in the course of which they played at Blindman's Buff. They played
that game, for their greater sport, by the light of the fire only; and once
when they were all quietly rustling and stealing about, and the blindman
was trying to pick out the prettiest sister (for which I am far from blaming
him), somebody cried, ' Hark ! The man below must be playing Blind-
man's Buff by himself to-night ! ' They listened, and they heard sounds of
some one falling about and stumbling against furniture, and they all laughed
at the conceit, and went on with their play, more light-hearted and merry
than ever. Thus, those two so different games of life and death were played
out together, blindfold, in the two sets of chambers." 2

4. Hyperbole is used, often in a humorous vein, to make
some one quality strike the reader's realizing power before all
others. It rouses in a vivid manner the spirit in which the
object is to be most truly viewed.3

1 For antithesis in general, see above, p. 271 ; in exposition, p. 566, below.

2 Dickens, Uncommercial Traveller, p. 203.

3 For hyperbole in general, see above, p. 99.

DESCRIPTION. 497

Examples. — The following sets off the object partly by hyperbole,
partly by simile: "'Just so,' said the notary, pulling out his old watch,
which was two inches thick and looked like a Dutch man-of-war." 1

Macaulay's description of Nares's work on Burleigh is conceived in the
spirit of hyperbole. Here is a passage from it : " Compared with the
labor of reading through these volumes, all other labor, the labor of thieves
on the treadmill, of children in factories, of negroes in sugar plantations,
is an agreeable recreation. ... It is not merely in bulk, but in specific
gravity also, that these memoirs exceed all other human compositions. On
every subject which the professor discusses, he produces three times as
many pages as another man ; and one of his pages is as tedious as
another man's three."2

Various Utilizations of Poetic Traits. — The fact that the
information conveyed by description is information to be
imagined, gives to its language something at once of the
elevated tone of poetry and of the utilitarian tone of prose.
Hence the poetic traits that appear in a portrayal are as
practical as they are ornate ; their elegance is their utility.3

i. Epithet, with its point and its pervading vigor of trope,
is perhaps the most common and serviceable means of con-
densing a whole picture, or scene, or spiritual trait, into a
word. It is better than pages of inventory description in
cases where vividness of conception is needed.4

Examples. — Epithet is Ruskin's prevailing means of describing natu-
ral scenery ; see the quotation from him on p. 168, with the remark suc-
ceeding. It is also Carlyle's principal resource in the personal portrayals
of which he is an acknowledged master. In 1839 he wrote to Emerson
the following description of Daniel Webster : —

" Not many days ago I saw at breakfast the notablest of all your Nota-
bilities, Daniel Webster. He is a magnificent specimen ; you might say to
all the world, This is your Yankee Englishman, such limbs we make in
Yankeeland ! As a Logic-fencer, Advocate, or Parliamentary Hercules,
one would incline to back him at first sight against all the extant world.

1 Balzac.

2 ftfACAULAY, Burleigh and his Times, Essays, Vol. iii, p. 2.
8 See this fact exemplified above, p. III.

4 For classes and uses of epithet, see above, pp. 147-151.

498 THE LITERARY TYPES.

The tanned complexion, that amorphous crag-like face ; the dull black eye
under their precipice of brows, like dull anthracite furnaces, needing onh
to be blown; the mastiff-mouth, accurately closed: — I have not traced a:
much of silent Berserkir-rage, that I remember of, in any other man." 1

2. As befits picturing, all the qualities that give language
suggestiveness for the eye and the ear are common to descrip
tion and poetry : word-painting, onomatopoeia, imitative
words, alliteration, subtle effects of consonant and vowel
sounds, and the like. Most of these have been fully denned
and exemplified.2

Note. — The delicacies of technique in the subtle colorings of conso-
nantal and vowel sounds belong to a region of study for the most part
beyond the scope of this book ; for some interesting remarks on the sub-
ject, with citations, see Stevenson's article on Technical Elements of Style
in Literature, Works, Vol. xxii, pp. 257-264. That truth and fineness of
description are enhanced by such sound-relations may be felt, even without
analysis, from some of his quoted passages. For instance, note the pre-
vailing key of the sounds KANDLSR in the following, —

" In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure dome decree,
Where Alph the sacred river ran,
Through caverns measureless to man,

Down to a sunless sea, " — 8

and the very different effect of BRNPUR in the following, —

" The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne
Burn'd on the water : the poop was beaten gold ;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
The winds were love-sick with them." *

3. In an equally spontaneous way the rhythmic flow of the
descriptive sentence and paragraph answers to the object

1 Correspondence of Carlyle and Emerson, Vol. i, p. 247.

2 For word-painting, see p. 151, above; for onomatopoetic words and phrasing,
p. 160 ; for sounds in sequence and repetition, p. 156.

3 Coleridge, Kubla Khan.

4 Shakespeare, Anthony and Cleopatra, Act ii, Scene 2.

DESCRIPTION. 499

described ; thus the movement may be stirring and intense,
I or light and graceful, or rolling and ample. All this belongs
I to the artistry of a living imagination..

Examples. — The impetuous movement of a passage full of vigorous
description has been exemplified in the quotation from Thomas Hughes on
p. 162, above.

In the following, which is written mostly in a light conversational tone,
notice the greater roll, as wrell as the more copious use of poetic words,
when the passage becomes descriptive : —

" The attractions of this spot are not numerous. There is surf-bathing
all along the outer side of the beach, and good swimming on the inner.
The fishing is fair; and in still weather yachting is rather a favorite amuse-
ment. Further than this there is little to be said, save that the hotel is
conducted upon liberal principles, and the society generally select.

" But to the lover of nature — and who has the courage to avow himself
aught else? — the seashore can never be monotonous. The swirl and
sweep of ever-shifting waters, the flying mist of foam breaking away into
a gray and ghostly distance down the beach, the eternal drone of ocean,
mingling itself with one's talk by day and with the light dance-music in the
parlors by night — all these are active sources of a passive pleasure. And
to lie at length upon the tawny sand, watching, through half-closed eyes,
the heaving waves, that mount against a dark blue sky wherein great sil-
very masses of cloud float idly on, whiter than the sunlit sails that fade and
grow and fade along the horizon, while some fair damsel -sits close by, read-
ing ancient ballads of a simple metre, or older legends of love and romance
— tell me, my eater of the fashionable lotus, is not this a diversion well
worth your having ? " *

II.

The Human Interest. — As is partly shown in the employ-
ment of personification,2 there is a natural and wholesome
tendency to introduce a human element of life or feeling into
description ; the object is seen not in dead objective form,
but through the medium or atmosphere of sympathy or
experience. In this way the share of the observer in the

1 GEOftGE ARNOLD, In Stories by American Authors, Vol. v, p. 142.

2 See above, p. 495.

500 THE LITERARY TYPES.

thing described is made intimate and real ; he is provided
so to say, with a human standard to estimate it by.1

Thus the mind of a supposed spectator mingles subtly with
the point of view ; the reader thinks himself into a position
not only of space but of feeling, — to look through eyes
young or old, sympathetic or hostile, of wonder or of fear,
according to the human element that is infused into the
scene. And all this of course makes a much more living thing
of the object itself.

Note. — Scenic artists and photographers understand the value of the
human element; they introduce men into the view of a building or of a
landscape, both as a convenient standard of measurement and as a sugges-
tion of life.

The description quoted on p. 17, above, with the note thereon, p. 19,
shows how much a description may owe to the human interest.

This resort to the human interest has two opposite extremes
of application, both of which on occasion are relied on for
certain strong impressions.

Suggestion by Effects. — In this extreme the human subject
is everything, the object of description nothing. In other
words, by describing merely the demeanor of the spectator —
his kindled eye, his suffused cheek, his blanched face, his
clenched hand — we convey to the reader, as by a kind of
mirror reflection, a powerful notion of the quality in the
object that we wish to impress, — its sublimity, or grewsome-
ness, or hurtfulness, or marvelousness. This is obviously a

1 Of Tennyson's descriptive method Stopford Brooke writes : " Tennyson rarely
painted a landscape without humanity, and he places his figures with all the skill of a
painter. He knew that Nature alone was not half as delightful as Nature and man
together. Lover of Nature as he was, he avoided the crowning fault of modern
poetry — the unmitigated merciless description of Nature, trickling on for fifty and
a hundred lines together, without one touch of human interest. ... It is from this
impassioned mingling of the soul and sight of man with the soul and sight of Nature
that the specialized loveliness arises which charms us, and dignifies itself, in the
descriptions of Tennyson." — Brooke, Tennyson, his Art and Relation to Modern
Life, p. 288.

DESCRIPTION. ■ 501

very potent means of suggesting the great elemental traits of
things, such as need no analysis or minute detailing.1

Examples. — A celebrated Bible description, P^liphaz's vision, does not
portray the object at all, but merely its effect on the beholder: —

" In wandering thoughts from visions of the night,
When deep sleep falleth upon men,
Fear came upon me, and trembling,
Which made all my bones to shake.
Then a spirit glided before my face, —
The hair of my flesh rose up, —
It stood still, but its form I could not discern,
A figure before mine eyes ;
— Silence — and I heard a voice :
' Shall mortal man be just before God?
Shall the strong man, before his Maker, be pure ? "'2

Shakespeare employs this kind of suggestion in his supernatural scenes,
as for instance in Macbeth, where the ghost of Banquo appears.3 It is
Macbeth's strange words and acts which produce the effect, nothing that
is seen. A touch of such suggestion comes at the end of the Dover cliff
description, to indicate the terror-producing height : —

" I '11 look no more ;
Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong." 4

But we may stop a step short of this, too, and in a man's
face and bodily acts read his mind, especially in its more
profoundly stirred moods. Thus, though nothing but what
is visible may be mentioned, the reader is guided to what is
deep within, and the most difficult descriptive object, man's
mind, stands out revealed, like an object of sense.

1 " One of the strongest and most successful modes of describing any powerful
object, of any kind, is to describe it in its effects. When the spectator's eye is daz-
zled, and he shades it, we form the idea of a splendid object ; when his face turns
pale, of a horrible one ; from his quick wonder and admiration we form the idea of
gre.it beauty ; from his silent awe, of great majesty." — Mozley, Essays Historical
and Theological, Vol. ii, p. 190.

2 Job iv. 13-17. Translation by the author of this book.
8 Macbeth, Act iii, Scene 4,

4 King Lear, Act iv, Scene 6. Sec p, 491, above.

502 THE LITERARY TYPES.

Examples. — The descriptive effect of the following is not in what the
subject does; all serves rather to portray a mind unhinged by reverse and
despair : —

" A sad reverse it was for him who long
Had filled with plenty, and possessed in peace,
This lonely Cottage. At the door he stood,
And whistled many a snatch of merry tunes
That had no mirth in them ; or with his knife
Carved uncouth figures on the heads of sticks —
Then, not less idly, sought, through every nook
In house or garden, any casual work
Of use or ornament ; and with a strange,
Amusing, yet uneasy, novelty,
He mingled, where he might, the various tasks
Of summer, autumn, winter, and of spring." 1

Subjective Description. — In this opposite extreme the object
contemplated is so nearly everything that the observer's
personality is blended with it. That is, his mood or emotion
of joy or sadness, his general state of health or morbidness,
operates to robe the world in the qualities of his own soul ;
so that the scene is dismal or genial, not necessarily as so in
itself, but because he is. Of the same principle it is to make
nature partake in some described action, as if things inani-
mate were endowed with sympathy. This kind of description,
though in a literal sense it takes liberties with nature, is
obviously full of power and intensity, and, read with proper
emotional allowance, does not mislead.2

1 Wordsworth, Excursion, Book i, Works (Globe edition), p. 423.

2 Ruskin inveighs against such attribution of sympathy to nature, which he thus
illustrates and defines : " I want to examine the nature of the other error, that which
the mind admits, when affected strongly by emotion. Thus, for instance, in Alton
Locke : —

' They rowed her in across the rolling foam —
The cruel, crawling foam.'

The foam is not cruel, neither does it crawl. The state of mind which attributes to
it these characters of a living creature is one in which the reason is unhinged by
grief. All violent feelings have the same effect. They produce in us a falseness in
all our impressions of external things, which 1 would generally characterize as the
' Pathetic Fallacy.' " — Ruskin, Modem Painters, Vol. iii, p. 159.

DESCRIPTION. 503

Examples. — i. Of nature colored by the describer's mind. Tenny-
son's Maud, which is meant to be a portrayal of a morbid mind, may be
read throughout as a masterly work of subjective description. This is the
way, in the first stanza, that a certain ravine is described : —

" I hate the dreadful hollow behind the little wood,
Its lips in the field above are dabbled with blood-red heath,
The red-ribb'd ledges drip with a silent horror of blood,
And Echo there, whatever is ask'd her, answers ' Death.' "

In Hamlet occurs an interesting example of resistance to the tendency to
make description subjective. Hamlet is determined to see things as they
are, not as colored by his disordered mind : " I have of late — but where-
fore I know not — lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises ; and
indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the
earth, seems to me a sterile promontory ; this most excellent canopy, the
air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted
with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and
pestilent congregation of vapors." *

2. Of nature in sympathy with human action. Of the great sin which
caused the loss of Paradise, Milton thus describes the accompaniments in
nature : —

" Earth trembled from her entrails, as again

In pangs, and Nature gave a second groan ;

Sky loured, and, muttering thunder, some sad drops

Wept at completing of the mortal Sin

Original." 2

III.

Aid from Narrative Movement. — Description is so closely
allied to narration that the two are very spontaneously used
as accessories of each other. Some forms of discourse there
are, indeed, wherein narrative and descriptive elements are so
blended and balanced that it is difficult to determine which
has the predominance.

It is a natural tendency, when an object is vividly con-
ceived, to endow it with life and motion. We see this in
personification and in allegory. We see it also in numerous

i Shakksi'i:aki:, Hamlet, Act ii, Scene 2.

2 Milton, Paradise Lost, Book ix, 11. 1000-1004.

504 THE LITERARY TYPES.

narrative touches, such as trope-words involving action, verbs
of motion used to portray objects at rest, and the like ; which
things, of which every lively description is full, serve to
invigorate the scene more than the reader is aware.

Illustration. — Observe how the words here italicized, which are at
once personification (or at least animization) and verbs of action, enliven
the description in the following : —

" So till the dusk that follow'd evensong
Rode on the two, reviler and reviled ;
Then after one long slope was mounted, saw,
Bowl-shaped, thro' tops of many thousand pines
A gloomy-gladed hollow slowly sink
To westward — in the deeps whereof a mere,
Round as the red eye of an Eagle-owl,
Under the half -dead sunset glared." 1

Apart from these minor narrative suggestions there are two
classes of descriptive objects wherein narrative movement
becomes necessary.

i. Time-Conditioned Portrayal. — Something of narrative
character in description is compelled by the element of
time entering in. The description of a storm, for instance,
or of a sunrise, must recognize the changes of aspect during
the continuance of the scene ; and thus the portrayal, released
from the awkward limitation of an inert object,2 assumes at
once the movement of story. A battle may be treated either
descriptively or narratively ; that is, the principle of treat-
ment may lie predominantly in the picturing of scenes or in
the development of action ; but in either case there must
necessarily be large recourse to the other literary type.

Example. — The following description is introduced into an oration to
give point to some truths in astronomy: —

" I had occasion, a few weeks since, to take the early train from Provi-
dence to Boston ; and for this purpose rose at two o'clock in the morning.
Everything around was wrapt in darkness and hushed in silence, broken

1 Tennyson, Gareth and Lynette, 11. 773-780.

2 See the second problem of material and handling, p. 480, above.

DESCRIPTION: 505

only by what seemed at that hour the unearthly clank and rush of the train.
It was a mild, serene, midsummer's night, — the sky was without a cloud, —
the winds were whist. The moon, then in the last quarter, had just risen,
and the stars shone with a spectral lustre but little affected by her presence.
Jupiter, two hours high, was the herald of the day; the Pleiades, just
above the horizon, shed their sweet influence in the east ; Lyra sparkled
near the zenith ; Andromeda veiled her newly-discovered glories from the
naked eye in the south ; the steady pointers, far beneath the pole, looked
meekly up from the depths of the north to their sovereign.

" Such was the glorious spectacle as I entered the train. As we pro-
ceeded, the timid approach of twilight became more perceptible ; the
intense blue of the sky began to soften ; the smaller stars, like little chil-
dren, went first to rest; the sister-beams of the Pleiades soon melted
together; but the bright constellations of the west and north remained
unchanged. Steadily the wondrous transfiguration went on. Hands of
angels, hidden from mortal eyes, shifted the scenery of the heavens ; the
glories of night dissolved into the glories of the dawn. The blue sky now
turned more softly gray ; the great watch-stars shut up their holy eyes ; the
east began to kindle. Faint streaks of purple soon blushed along the sky ;
the whole celestial concave was filled with the inflowing tides of the morn-
ing light, which came pouring down from above in one great ocean of radi-
ance ; till at length, as we reached the Blue Hills, a flash of purple fire
blazed out from above the horizon, and turned the dewy tear-drops of
flower and leaf into rubies and diamonds. In a few seconds, the everlast-
ing gates of the morning were thrown wide open, and the lord of day,
arrayed in glories too severe for the gaze of man, began his state." x

As to battle-scenes, Stephen Crane, in The Red Radge of Courage, is
prevailingly descriptive, lending interest more to the scene than to the result.
Captain Charles King, whose description of Pickett's charge at Gettys-
burg2 Lord Wolesley, Lord William Beresford, and General Fitzwygram
agreed to call " the most perfect picture of a battle-scene in the English
language," treats his subject more as a plotted narrative.

2. Panoramic Portrayal. — The element of comprehensiveness
in a scene may also compel the use of narrative movement ; as
in an extended landscape, or tract of country, whose features
of interest cannot all be seen from one point of view. In
such a case the' description, which becomes virtually the

1 Everett, Orations and Speeches, Vol. iii, p. 457.

2 King, Between the Lines, pp. 268-282.

506 THE LITERARY TYPES.

account of a journey, is regulated by what is called " the
traveller's point of view " ; that is, the describer is repre-
sented as going from one point to another and portraying
successive aspects.

Examples. — i. In his description of the river Oxus, at the end of
Sohrab and Rustum, Matthew Arnold, instead of postulating a traveller
to follow its course, personifies the river itself.

2. The following shows how naturally the reader adjusts his point of
view, and thus follows the fortunes of the portrayal like those of a story : —

"Just on the brow of the hill, where I paused to look before me, the
series of stone pillars came abruptly to an end ; and only a little below, a
sort of track appeared and began to go down a breakneck slope, turning
like a corkscrew as it went. It led into a valley between falling hills,
stubbly with rocks like a reaped field of corn, and floored further down
with green meadows. I followed the track with precipitation ; the steep-
ness of the slope, the continual agile turning of the line of descent, and the
old unwearied hope of finding something new in a new country, all con-
spired to lend me wings. Yet a little lower and a stream began, collecting
itself together out of many fountains, and soon making a glad noise among
the hills. Sometimes it would cross the track in a bit of waterfall, with a
pool, in which Modestine refreshed her feet.

" The whole descent is like a dream to me, so rapidly was it accom-
plished. I had scarcely left the summit ere the valley had closed round
my path, and the sun beat upon me, walking in a stagnant lowland atmos-
phere. The track became a road, and went up and down in easy undula-
tions. I passed cabin after cabin, but all seemed deserted ; and I saw not
a human creature, nor heard any sound except that of the stream." x Etc.

III. DESCRIPTION IN LITERATURE.

In the body of literature description occupies a place of its
own, which needs to be accounted for by a few words of
explanation.

General Status and Value. — While to a greater or less extent
description pervades all the great forms of literature, and

1 Stevenson, Travels with a Donkey, Works, Vol. xii, p. 230.

DESCRIPTION. 507

does much in aid of the other literary types, comparatively
little is made of it as a form by itself. In its more elaborate
and picturesque work, it is to be found mostly in passages or
sections of productions mainly narrative or oratorical. Yet
this fact is no indication of slight esteem for it ; rather the
contrary. It is often regarded and estimated as if it were a
jewel in a setting ; pointed out and quoted by readers and
critics, and by writers worked up with most painstaking care.
On the whole, no more delicate indication of a writer's skill
and taste is afforded than by his management of description ;
and so the general judgment regards the matter.1

One reason for this peculiar status of description in litera-
ture has already been repeatedly suggested 2 : the wealth of
detail in the object, the unhandiness of language in picturing
it. Whatever is done with it, then, must be done quickly and
strikingly, — it cannot run into volumes, or even into chapters.
Yet the very difficulty of the problem has such fascination for
the born artist, and so calls out his powers, that his work, if
it survives, is shrined among the treasures of literature.

1 The care and study of novelists in working up what is called " local color " for
the scenes and atmosphere of their works have become almost a proverb. Of Scott's
visit to the place where he was to lay the scene of Rokeby we have the following
account : u The morning after he arrived he said, ' You have often given me materials
for romance — now I want a good robber's cave and an old church of the right sort.'
We rode out, and he found what he wanted in the ancient slate quarries of Brignal
and the ruined Abbey of Eggleston. I observed him noting down even the peculiar
little wild flowers and herbs that accidentally grew round and on the side of a bold
crag near his intended cave of Guy Denzil ; and could not help saying, that as he was
not to be upon oath in his work, daisies, violets, and primroses would be as poetical
as any of the humble plants he was examining. I laughed, in short, at his scrupu-
lousness ; but I understood him when he replied, ' that in nature herself no two
scenes were exactly alike, and that whoever copied truly what was before his eyes,
would possess the same variety in his descriptions, and exhibit apparently an im-
agination as boundless as the range of nature in the scenes he recorded ; whereas —
whoever trusted to imagination, would soon find his own mind circumscribed, and
contracted to a few favorite images, and the repetition of these would sooner or later
produce that very monotony and barrenness which had always haunted descriptive
poetry in the hands of any but the patient worshippers of truth.'" — LOCKHART,
Life of Scott, Vol. iv, p. 20.

2 See above, pp. 479, 493.

508 THE LITERARY TYPES.

Another reason that may guide the describer is men's ten-
dency to make practical demands. They are impatient of por-
trayals, however vivid or artistic, that stop with themselves ;
their unspoken demand is that a description shall contribute
to explain or enforce or prove something. As long as it is an
amplification, making some goal of thought more sightly, it is
interesting ; but let it exist for itself alone, and plain people
will regard it as an unpractical trifling. This general demand,
which is not unwholesome, is to be reckoned with by any one
who seeks a status for his work in literature.

II.

Forms of which Description is the Basis. — The few forms that
employ description as their prevailing type are, so to speak,
frankly outspoken as to their limitations : they are for the
most part either unrestrainedly aesthetic, appealing to the few
who are their fit audience, or downright practical, appealing
to the many who want plain unimaginative facts.

Descriptive Poetry. — Poetry, as it rises so largely out of the
imagination, is a more descriptive art than prose. Its imagery,
its concreteness, its. liberty to revel in beautiful forms undis-
turbed by utilitarian exactions, all contribute to make its
picturing power a main feature. And it is largely for its
world of imagery that readers go to poetry and value it.

In spite of this fact, however, works distinctly descriptive
form a comparatively small class, even in poetry ; though it
should be noted that no class is choicer. The same prejudice
against the non-utilizable seems to be encountered here as in
prose ; accordingly the imagery and description are valued
mostly as they are concentrated into some sentiment, or
lesson, or emotion, in which the poem's true significance
resides. Hence the special field of description is in short
lyric poems, where some image or suggestion of nature is

DESCRIPTION. 509

taken up and applied to some truth of life. A small and
much-valued body of longer descriptive poems, also, are
counted high among the stores of English literature.

Examples of Longer Descriptive Poems. — Thompson's Seasons
and Castle of Indolence ; Milton's L' Allegro and II Penseroso ; Keats's
Endymion ; Beattie's Minstrel ; Burns's Cotter's Saturday Night ; Gold-
smith's Traveller and Deserted Village; Tennyson's Palace of Art, and
Dream of Fair Women ; Browning's Childe Roland to the Dark Tower
came, and How they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix.

Informative Treatises and Articles. — Description is employed
with the purpose of imparting plain information, and with no
attempt to shun what is statistical and inventory-like, in books
and periodical articles whose object is to give an account of
some building, work of art or mechanism, natural phenome-
non, or country's resources. In such descriptions the pictorial
element is little regarded : interest centres in dimensions,
accurate details, statistics, and the like. Thoroughness and
clearness are the predominating aims ; the subject is supposed
to contain its own interest, and not to need the vivifying
power of language to create or heighten it. Such work may
indeed profit by vigor and lightness of style, so far as these
qualities do not interfere with its practical aim ; but the prac-
tical aim must first be satisfied.

Examples. — Standard books of this kind are Wallace's Russia and
Williams's The Middle Kingdom. In periodical literature may be men-
tioned the numerous articles continually appearing on some projected
or completed public work, as the Congressional Library, the Sub-way in
Boston, the Columbia University Buildings; as also papers on the resources
of some state or district, art exhibitions, and the like. It is distinctively
the class of useful literature.

Sketches of Travel and Observation. — Intermediate in tone
between the forms just named, and inclining sometimes to the
purely literary, sometimes to the informative, is a valued body
of books and sketches of travel and observation. In these

510 THE LITERARY TYPES.

works description, while remaining the element for which the
book or article exists, employs also narrative elements, in the
shape of incidents and details of travel, popular traditions,
and the like. The style aimed at is light, lively, conversa-
tional. The aim is to impart information in the guise of
charm and amusement. It does not ordinarily seek minute-
ness of information ; being occupied rather with the endeavor
to sketch scenery, towns, customs, and national types, in an
enjoyable and realistic manner.

Examples. — Stevenson's Inland Voyage, Travels with a Donkey, and
The Amateur Emigrant are good examples of the rather more literary
treatment of this kind of material. Kinglake's Eothen is a brilliant book
of Eastern travel. Borrow's The Bible in Spain is a noted book of this
class ; not purely descriptive. A rather thoughtful and philosophic
example is Emerson's English Traits. Hawthorne's Our Old Home is
lighter and more graceful. Of works less ambitiously literary may be
mentioned Du Chaillu's The Land of the Midnight Sun, and the works
of Mrs. Isabella Bird Bishop on Oriental travel.

CHAPTER XV.
NARRATION.

Of men's natural impulse, mentioned at the beginning of the
last chapter, to report what they observe in the world around
them, narration, the report of action, is by far the most
prolific outcome. Its congenial subject makes it the most
spontaneous of literary types. When we inquire what ordi-
nary men, men of the street and of common life, are interested
in and talk about, we find it invariably something involving
action and its result, — a race, a contest, a feat of bodily
prowess, a casualty. When we ask what men are readiest to
relate about themselves, we find it to be something that they
have lived through, and that has become an event in their
experience. Thus wellnigh everything in life comes to expres-
sion in story; and the story, narrative, is the form of literature
that comes nearest to making itself.1

It will not do to conclude from this, however, that narrative
is the easiest to make or the least artistic when made. Very
nearly the opposite is the truth. Of all the literary types
narration demands perhaps the most finely adjusted art; but
because the chief capability for it is supplied by natural inven-
tion,2 the art, while not less exacting, gets itself into form by

1 " Our very speech is curiously historical. Most men, you may observe, speak
only to narrate ; not in imparting what they have thought, which indeed were often
a very small matter, but in exhibiting what they have undergone or seen, which is a
quite unlimited one, do talkers dilate. Cut us off from Narrative, how would the
stream of conversation, even among the wisest, languish into detached handfuls, and
among the foolish utterly evaporate! Thus, as we do nothing but enact History, we
say little but recite it." — Carlyle , On History, Essays, Vol. ii, p. 84.

> See above, p. yjo.

512 THE LITERARY TYPES.

a kind of native instinct discovering its own laws of working
More must be allowed to nature in proportion as more i
involved in art. The principles here traced, therefore, must
to an extent beyond the ordinary, wait upon those who are fi
to apply them.

Definition of Narration. — Narration is the recounting, ir
succession, of the particulars that together make up <
transaction.

A brief analysis of this definition will reveal some of tru
special aims in making a narrative.

i. The word transaction, which designates the subject-mat-
ter of narration, implies not a mere agglomeration of particu-
lars but a series, rounded and self-contained, with a character
as a whole in which all the particulars share; nor does this
series merely go on and stop but rather is shaped to a culmi-
nation in which the whole trend of significance comes to light
and solution.

2. By the particulars that make up the transaction are
meant not any and all the things that take place, but merely
such as have affinities with each other in working toward the
end in view. This implies rigid selection, and careful weigh-
ing of what are retained ; it implies also that no particular
exists for itself alone, but merely as part of a larger event.

3. These particulars are related in succession; that is to
say, they have a movement, one' growing out of another and
preparing for a third, and all together making a chain which
in its large result is remembered in the order of time. This
gives the effect of the simplest associative law of thought, —
contiguity1; but the masterliness of its art consists largely in
giving the particulars a closer interrelation — of similarity, of
cause and effect — without seeming to do so; so that a suc-
cession apparently casual and artless becomes really a finely
adjusted order of events.

l See above, p. 443.

NARRA TION. 513

I. THE ART OF NARRATION.

The procedure in narrative is essentially the same whether
the transaction to be narrated is real or fictitious. If real, it
is still to be related with skilful progression and proportion
of parts; if fictitious, it is still to have verisimilitude, as if it
were real. And in either case the story, as a story, is an
invention, an art-product; it is to follow the lines of construc-
tion that obtain in fiction, with such selection and proportion-
ing, even of fact, as will give the result all the freedom and
fulness of an absolute creation.1

As a built composition, the quality to which narration mani-
fests special allegiance is continuity. Its events so obviously
rise out of each other that no emphasis of a skeleton plan is
needed; its particulars are so homogeneous that the theme
which they support is revealed not as an affirmation but as
an unfolded progress.2 Narration is thus ideally the type of
finished order in thinking toward which every good thought

1 " The art of narrative, in fact, is the same, whether it is applied to the selection
and illustration of a real series of events or of an imaginary series. Boswell's Life
of Johnson (a work of cunning and inimitable art) owes its success to the same
technical manoeuvres as (let us say) Tom Jones: the clear conception of certain
characters of man, the choice and presentation of certain incidents out of a great
number that offered, and the invention (yes invention) and preservation of a certain
key in dialogue." — Stevenson, A Humble Remonstrance, Works, Vol. xiii, p. 346.

Of Macaulay's narrative method it is said : " No historian before him ever
regarded his task from the same point of view, or aimed with such calm patience
and labor at the same result ; no one, in short, had ever so resolved to treat real
events on the lines of the novel or romance. Many writers before Macaulay had
done their best to be graphic and picturesque, but none ever saw that the scattered
fragments of truth could, by incessant toil directed by an artistic eye, be worked into
a mosaic, which for color, freedom, and finish, might rival the creations of fancy."
— M orison, Macaulay {English Men of Letters), p. 143.

* above, pp. 426, 436. "The art of narration is the art of writing in hooks
and eyes. The principle consists in making the appropriate thought follow the appro-
priate thought, the proper fact the proper fact ; in first preparing the mind for what
is to come, and then letting it come. This can only be achieved by keeping con-
tinually and insensibly before the mind of the reader some one object, character, or
variation! are the events of the story, whose unity is the unity of
it." — Bagbhot, Literary studies, Vol ii, p, 253.

514 THE LITERARY TYPES.

sequence tends ; its art being so perfect as to conceal it .
processes, and to seem artless.1

The End : to which all is Related as Forecast. — The prim :
requisite in narration is that the end be kept in view from th<
beginning, and that every part be shaped and proportione<
with more or less direct reference to it. A culmination o
some kind always impends, exerting its attraction on every stage
of progress. Thus, in its larger field of invention, narratioi
suggests the analogy of the suspended sentence2; it is suspen
sion, expectancy, on a large scale, and expressed in events.3

i. As Influence to subdue Details. — The most practical resuli
of keeping an end in view is, that thereby a criterion of choice
and rejection is always present, and the details fall into bal-
ance and proportion according as they obey the attraction o\
the end. From the plan as thus controlled some things natu-
rally fall out as extraneous, some receive rapid or subdued treat-
ment as unimportant, some are put in emphasis as cardinal
elements of the composition. Of all these the foreseen end is
the silent controller.4

1 Thus best realizing the Manner of Progress laid down for universal observance,
p. 439, above. 2 See above, pp. 279, 350.

3 " Our art is occupied, and bound to be occupied, not so much in making stories
true as in making them typical ; not so much in capturing the lineaments of each
fact, as in marshalling all of them towards a common end. For the welter of
impressions, all forcible but all discreet, which life presents, it substitutes a certain
artificial series of impressions, all indeed most feebly represented, but all aiming at
the same effect, all eloquent of the same idea, all chiming together like consonant
notes in music or like the graduated tints in a good picture. From all its chapters,
from all its pages; from all its sentences, the well-written novel echoes and re-echoes
its one creative and controlling thought ; to this must every incident and character
contribute ; the style must have been pitched in unison with this ; and if there is
anywhere a word that looks another way, the book would be stronger, clearer, and
(I had almost said) fuller without it." — Stevenson, A Humble Remonstrance,
Works, Vol. xiii, p. 349.

4 " Keeping the beginning and the end in view, we set out from the right starting-
place and go straight towards the right destination ; we introduce no event that

NARRA TION. 515

This influence of the end may be illustrated both directly
and by contrast.

i. The contrast — failure to keep an end in view — is seen
in the narratives of the untutored; to whom it has never
occurred that one fact is more important than another; who
waste time in fixing some date or circumstance that is of no
consequence ; who take as much pains with utterly irrele-
vant details as with essential; who cannot skip anything that
occurred without losing their reckoning. All this is mainly
because they have not set before them some end, some goal,
to which the course of their story is to be steered.1

Example. — In the following a person of this cast of mind sets out to
tell how she had just received a note containing a bit of news : — "' But
where could you hear it?' cried Miss Bates. ' Where could you possibly
hear it, Mr. Knightley ? For it is not five minutes since I received Mrs.
Cole's note — no, it cannot be more than five — or at least ten — for I had
got my bonnet and spencer on, just ready to come out — I was only gone

does not spring from the first cause, and tend to the great effect; we make each
detail a link joined to the one going before and the one coming after ; we make, in
fact, all the details into one entire chain, which we can take up as a whole, carry-
about with us, and retain as long as we please." — Pryde, Studies in Cotnposition,
p. 26.

1 " In the narrations of uneducated people . . . there is a want of prospectiveness
and a superfluous amount of regressiveness. People of this sort are unable to look
a long way in front of them, and they wander' from the right path. They get on too
fast with one half, and then the other hopelessly lags. They can tell a story exactly
as it is told to them, . . . but they can't calculate its bearings beforehand, or see how
it is to be adapted to those to whom they are speaking, nor do they know how much
they have thoroughly told and how much they have not. ' I went up the street, and
then I went down the street; no, first went down and then — but you do not follow
me ; I go before you, sir.' Thence arises the complex style usually adopted by persoi*
not used to narration. They tumble into a story and get on as they can." — B age-
hot, F.ilcrary Studies, Vol. i, p. 145.

" Those insufferably garrulous old women, those dry and fanciless beings who
spare you no detail, however petty, of the facts they are recounting, and upon the
thread of whose narrative all the irrelevant items cluster as pertinaciously ae the
essential ones, the slaves of literal fact, the stumblers over the smallest abrupt step
in thought, are figures known to all of us. Comic literature has made her profit
out of them. Juliet's nurse is a classical example. George Eliot's village characters
and some of Dickens's minor personages supply excellent instances." — James,
Psychology, Vol. i, p. 570.

516 THE LITERARY TYPES.

down to speak to Patty again about the pork — Jane was standing in th<
passage — were not you, Jane ? — for my mother was so afraid that w<
had not any salting-pan large enough. So I said, I would go down anc
see, and Jane said, " Shall I go down instead ? for I think you have i
little cold, and Patty has been washing the kitchen." — " Oh, my dear," —
said I — well, and just then came the note.' " x

2. The most palpable illustration of masterly skill in mak-
ing the end absolutely control the course and proportion ol
the story is seen in the anecdotes of the professional raconteur,
who may be regarded as representing the art of story-telling
in its prime essentials. His stories are frankly told, not for
the story's sake, but for the sake of some point or sentiment
in which their whole significance is focalized; and to this
point he subordinates everything, passing over preliminaries
with a rapid touch, cutting out everything that is not indis-
pensable to the main interest, using description with utmost
parsimony ; so that the end for which the story exists strikes
the hearers with all possible clearness and directness.2

Example. — The following anecdote is told to illustrate the truth that
" through the physical horrors of warfare, Poetry discerns the redeeming
nobleness." Notice by the parsimony of introduction and description, by
the steady forward movement, and by the way descriptive explanations
are introduced piecemeal and just where needed, how subservient every-
thing is to the foreseen end.

" A detachment of troops was marching along a valley, the cliffs over-
hanging which were crested by the enemy. A serjeant, with eleven men,
chanced to become separated from the rest by taking the wrrong side of a
ravine, which they expected soon to terminate, but which suddenly deep-
ened into an impassable chasm. The officer in command signalled to the
party an order to return. They mistook the signal for a command to
charge ; the brave fellows answered wTith a cheer, and charged. At the
summit of a steep mountain was a triangular platform, defended by a
breastwork, behind which were seventy of the foe. On they went, charg-
ing up one of those fearful paths, eleven against seventy. The contest

1 Jane Austen, Emma, Chap. xxi.

2 For anecdotes told compendiously as a means of amplification, see above, p. 470.

NARRA TION. 517

could not long be doubtful with such odds. One after another they fell;
six upon the spot, the remainder hurled backward; but not until they had
slain nearly twice their own number.

" There is a custom, we are told, among the bailsmen, that when a
great chieftain of their own falls in battle, his wrist is bound with a thread
either of red or green, the red denoting the highest rank. According to
custom, they stripped the dead, and threw their bodies over the precipice.
When their comrades came, they found their corpses stark and gashed ;
but round both wrists of every British hero was twined the red thread ! " x

When, however, we speak of the end of a story, we may-
have two different things in mind; or, as may be otherwise
expressed, a twofold interest : the interest of workmanship or
plot, and the interest of purpose or motive. In every seriously
meant story these two distinct ends exist, both equally essen-
tial to its integrity.

2. The Constructive End, or Denouement. — The forecast of
this end, with the steps necessary to bring it about, is the
artistic interest of the story, the interest derived from a skilful
piece of invention. Quite apart from the characters revealed,
or the scenery and atmosphere described, or the moral senti-
ment enforced, the reader is aware first of all of a chain of
incident and event which supports and conducts all the other
elements of the story, and in which its artistry is concentred.
This is called the plot. It is to the story what plan is to an
essay. It requires steady movement to an end, or denouement,
yet through enough intricacy of incident and motive to main-
tain interest in the novelty of its situations and to give an
unexpected turn to its final solution.

Note. — As a piece of invention a plot must strike a just balance
between novelty and verisimilitude : on the one hand, it must be new and
strange enough to enliven interest, not offending by dulness or common-
place ; on the other, it must assume itself to be real,2 and produce the effect

1 An incident of Sir Charles Napier's campaign against the robber tribes of Upper
Scinde, cited in Robkrtson, Lectures and Addresses, p. 804.

2 " It is impossible to imagine what a novelist takes himself to be unless he
regard himself as an historian and his narrative as a history. It is only as an

518 THE LITERARY TYPES.

of what might reasonably take place, not offending by an assumption c
fiction or by an ingenuity so great as to seem arbitrary. As soon as th
strings and levers by which the mechanism is worked become visible, th
illusion is lost and the real art goes with it ; as soon as the interest of pic
becomes the sole interest, we are reading a puzzle, not a living story.

3. The Didactic End, or Purpose. — What raises the plo
above the character of a mere puzzle or ingenious contriv
ance is the fact that a seriously meant story exists in order t(
embody a truth ; it has an end important enough to justif)
all the preparation made to reach it, and to survive the read
ing as a lesson of life. Despite the popular clamor againsi
stories with a moral purpose, this is the unspoken demand oi
every reader; we are impatient of a story that merely uses up
time and leaves no impression of wisdom or moral vigor.1
The failure to conduct the action to a worthy culmination is
what Horace satirizes in his well-known lines: —

Quid dignum tanto feret hie promissor hiatu ?
Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus." 2

It is not, in fact, against the existence of a purpose that the
popular criticism is directed; rather against its obtrusiveness
and insistency, — as if the story were conceived as a sermon
or a moral apologue. The didactic end must be so inwrought
with the story — never absent, never asserting itself — that it
will be received as a matter of course. It is by some called
the "soul of the story"; by others the conception. It is to

historian that he has the smallest locus standi. As a narrator of fictitious events he is
nowhere; to insert into his attempt a back-bone of logic, he must relate events that
are assumed to be real. This assumption permeates, animates all the work of the most
solid story-tellers." — James, Partial Portraits, p. 116. This is said in the course of
a criticism on Anthony Trollope, who, as the critic says, "took a suicidal satisfac-
tion in reminding the reader that the story he was telling was only, after all, a
make-believe."

1 " Some central truth should be embodied in every work of fiction, which cannot
indeed be compressed into a definite formula, but which acts as the animating anc
informing principle, determining the main lines of the structure and affecting even its
most trivial details." — Stephen, Hours in a Library, Vol. i, p. 204 (first edition).

2 Horace, Epistola ad Pisones de Arte Poetica, 1. 138.

NARRATION. 519

the story what the theme is to an essay1: an influence to give
character, worth, dignity to every part. By its working pres-
ence the story is motived, that is, kept to a justifying level of
conception, and closed to elements that have no sufficient basis
in human nature or that offend refined instincts. It is in this
pervading sense that the story is shaped to a didactic end.2

Examples. — Hawthorne's avowed purpose in The House of the Seven
Gables is to teach the truth " that the wrong-doing of one generation lives
into the successive ones, and divesting itself of every temporary advantage,
becomes a pure and uncontrollable mischief." The footnote below, how-
ever, will indicate how he makes the purpose pervasive rather than out-
standing. See also the examples of narrative themes on p. 427, above.

Instances of stories with purpose strongly emphasized though not quite
impairing the artistic structure, are found in Mrs. Stowe's Uncle Tom's
Cabin, and Mrs. Helen Hunt Jackson's Ramona. In some of the novels
of Dickens and Charles Reade the moral purpose is so prominent as to
incur the reproach of being lugged in ; as instanced in Bleak House, which
attacks the defects of the English Chancery courts, and Little Dorrit,
which in a similar way attacks the English red-tape system in matters of
government and justice.

4. Preliminary Ends, or Situations. — The final end, or denoue-
ment, is not the only solution point toward which the course
of a story tends. Generally some more immediate goal is in
view, some dramatic point or, as it is called, situation, which
for the time being serves as a landmark of progress. Thus
the story advances not equably but by stages, and never on a
dead level; there is always to be fostered in the reader's mind

1 See above, p. 426.

2 " When romances do really teach anything, or produce any effective operation,
it is usually through a far more subtile process than the ostensible one. The author
has considered it hardly worth his while, therefore, relentlessly to impale the story
with its moral as with an iron rod, — or, rather, as by sticking a pin through a butter-
fly,— thus at once depriving it of life, and causing it to stiffen in an ungainly and
unnatural attitude. A high truth, indeed, fairly, finely, and skilfully wrought out,
brightening at every step, and crowning the final development of a work of fiction,
may add an artistic glory, but is never any truer, and seldom any more evident, at
the last page than at the first." — HAWTHORNS, The House of the Screii Gables,
Preface, p. 14.

520 THE LITERARY TYPES.

a sense either of a crest of event reached or of approach tc
something important. This shows itself, as will be pointec
out in the next section, in the character of the movement
which, with greater or less intensity, is always aware of some
end, principal or preliminary.

Note. — How much both of the artistic skill and of the moral signifi-
cance of a story may reside in a cardinal situation may be judged from the
following remark on a situation in George Eliot's Middlemarch : " The
great act of Dorothea in paying her visit to Rosamond to counsel and
comfort her, and to save Lydgate, at the very moment when her own life
seemed to have been left to her desolate — I confess that it affects me as
a stroke of pathos hardly less than sublime. This is the true climax of
the interest of the novel. And it is worth noting that the climax is a
moral climax." 1

II.

The Narrative Movement. — If the aim of the story, always
present and operative, is to bring about some end, supreme
or subordinate, the course of the story must always be vital
with action, or anticipation, or preparation, shaping itself to
the solution that is impending. All is a concatenation, an
interlinking, with this outcome in view. This character of
the narrative is called its movement; and some of its main
features may here be noted.

i. Continuity of Movement. — The narrative movement is
especially exacting with regard to the succession of details:
its parts must be a palpable and regularly advancing series
from beginning to end. In general, therefore, that order is to
be observed in which each earlier particular will best prepare
for and lead to what succeeds.

i. The most natural way to secure this, the intrinsic order,
so to say, of narration, is the chronological — the order of time.
Whatever liberty is taken with this order in minor points, this
must be the general progress recalled by the reader, as he
endeavors to recollect the whole.

1 Wilkinson, A Free Lance in the Field of Life and Letters, p. 33.

NARRA TION. 521

Note. — The type of narration, then, before any refinement of art and
selection is applied to it, is simply annals ; setting down events as they
occur, as in a diary or chronicle.

2. As, however, the narrative becomes more complex, requir-
ing more art, there is more recognition of the inner connection
of events, and accordingly an increasing effort to blend the
order of time with the order of dependence.1 Sometimes, too,
the order of dependence becomes so significant as temporarily
to transgress chronology ; so that events separated by a con-
siderable period, being really cause and effect, may be grouped
together as belonging to the same series. This is the result
of a more vital interpretation of the elements of the story.

Note. — This is one of the liberties accorded to the philosophic way
of writing history. In Motley's Dutch Republic occurs the remark : " To
avoid interrupting the continuity of the narrative, the Spanish campaign
has been briefly sketched until the autumn of 1557, at which period the
treaty between the Pope and Philip was concluded. It is now necessary
to go back to the close of the preceding year."2 — Sometimes, too, the story
may be discarded, and events be traced backward step by step toward their
source ; this, however, is not so much narration as interpretation.

3. The beginning of a narrative has its claims of vigor and
interest, which must not be ignored. To make this inception
more effective, it is a not uncommon practice to begin the
story at some dramatic point along in the plot, and then bring
up what preceded in the form of an explanation, or as related
by some personage of the story.

Note. — In Carlyle's French Revolution, which is strictly chronological,
several books of the history precede that incident where the courtier
answers Louis XVI : " No, Sire, it is a revolution " ; while M. Taine, on
the other hand, taking this incident as the dramatic beginning to his his-
tory of the same epoch, afterwards brings up the causes of the Revolution
to that point. It is a question of artistic beginning. — In Homer's Odyssey,
Books ix-xii are taken up with Ulysses's story of his earlier wanderings,

1 See above, p. 445, 3.

2 Motley., Rise of the Dutch A'r//t/>/h; Vol. i, p. t66.

522 THE LITERARY TYPES.

as related by him to the Phaeacians. In Virgil's AZneid, in like manner,
^Eneas relates, in Books ii and hi, his previous adventures, to Queen Dido.
— George Eliot, at the beginning of Daniel Deronda. introduces her hirom«»
at a gaming-table, and afterwards, when the incidents immediately connected
with that scene are disposed of, goes back and relates how the heroine
came to such a position ; this latter history forming an essential though
not very stirring part of the narrative.

2. Rate of Movement. — The life of the narrative as a whole
and the relative significance of its parts depend largely upon
the rate, rapid or slow, at which the current of events is made
to move. In one part the occurrences of a considerable period
will bear to be dispatched in a few summarizing words ; in
another, deliberate labor of recounting is devoted to the action
of moments. By this means a kind of descriptive rapport is
maintained with events, corresponding to their importance, or
the lack of it, in the scheme of the story.

i. Movement is retarded by giving with scrupulous fulness
all the parts and stages of the action ; also by giving descrip-
tive and interpretative details, with the aim of making its
significance stand out, filling the whole field of vision. Such
slowness of movement is needed to impress the dramatic points
of the story, the cardinal features on which most depends.

Example. — In Scott's Talisman 1 is related how, when Richard Cceur
de Leon was making a friendly visit to Sultan Saladin, on being requested
to show his far-famed strength, he clove in two an iron bar by a single
blow of his sword ; whereupon the Sultan, in turn, severed with his
scimitar first a cushion of down, standing unsupported on its end, and
then a gauze veil laid across the weapon in mid-air.

Of this scene evidently the cardinal incidents are the blows with sword
and scimitar. Observe in what slow movement, that is, with what accu-
mulation of circumstance and description, these are related : " The glit-
tering broadsword, wielded by both his hands, rose aloft to the King's
left shoulder, circled round his head, descended with the sway of some
terrific engine, and the bar of iron rolled on the ground in two pieces, as
a woodsman would sever a sapling with a hedging-bill." Similarly the act

1 Scott, The Talisman, Chap, xxvii.

NARRA TION. 523

of Saladin : " ' Mark, then,' said Saladin ; and tucking up the sleeve of his
gown, showed his arm, thin indeed and spare, but which constant exercise
had hardened into a mass consisting of nought but bone, brawn, and sinew.
He unsheathed his scimitar, a curved and narrow blade, which glittered
not like the swords of the Franks, but was, on the contrary, of a dull blue
color, marked with ten millions of meandering lines, which showed how
anxiously the metal had been welded by the armorer. Wielding this
weapon, apparently so inefficient when compared to that of Richard, the
Soldan stood resting his weight upon his left foot, which was slightly
advanced ; he balanced himself a little as if to steady his aim, then stepping
at once forward, drew the scimitar across the cushion, applying the edge
so dexterously, and with so little apparent effort, that the cushion seemed
rather to fall asunder than to be divided by violence."

2. Movement is accelerated by the opposite process — giv-
ing only the main outlines or specially significant aspects of
the action, and omitting descriptive and amplifying details.
Such rapidity of movement is used to pass lightly and com-
pendiously over parts of the story that, while they may not be
left out altogether, have only a subordinate part to fill.1

Examples. — i. The following few words summarize the story of sev-
eral months : " The bedroom which she shared with some of the children
formed her retreat more continually than ever. Here, under her few
square yards of thatch, she watched winds, and snows, and rains, gorgeous
sunsets, and successive moons at their full. So close kept she that at
length almost everybody thought she had gone away." 2

2. The following illustrates how an action of which the successive stages
are less important than the general effect may be crowded together into
rapidly succeeding pictures : " A redoubt, which has fallen into the enemy's
hands, must be recaptured at any price, and under circumstances of all
but hopeless difficulty. A strong party has volunteered for the service ;
there is a cry for somebody to head them ; you see a soldier step out from
the ranks to assume this dangerous leadership ; the party moves rapidly
forward; in a few minutes it is swallowed up from your eyes in clouds of
smoke; for one half hour, from behind these clouds, you receive hiero-
glyphic reports of bloody strife — fierce repeating signals, flashes from
the guns, rolling musketry, and exulting hurrahs advancing or receding,

1 For the manner of securing rapidity, sec above, pp. 299-302.

2 Hardy, Tcss of the D'U.'forvi/Us, p, 93.

524 THE LITERARY TYPES.

slackening or redoubling. At length all is over ; the redoubt has beei
recovered ; that which was lost is found again; the jewel which had beer
made captive is ransomed with blood." l

Some further remarks on the rate of movement and the part
it plays in narration may be made here.

In non-fictitious narrative, detailed or amplified story,
amounting to retarded movement on a large scale, set off by
corresponding rapidity and brevity of dispatch in less impor-
tant portions, is called historical perspective. It is, as the
name implies, the means adopted in historical writing for
making events appear in their true relative rank, as viewed
in relation to the end or standpoint assumed in the work.

Note. — How the claims of historical perspective are recognized by
historians may be seen from the following remark quoted from a preface :
" The materials for the volumes now offered to the public were so abun-
dant that it was almost impossible to condense them into smaller compass
without doing injustice to the subject. It was desirable to throw full light
on these prominent points of the history, while the law of historical per-
spective will allow long stretches of shadow in the succeeding portions, in
which less important objects may be more slightly indicated." 2

In scenes wherein the activity is intense, the rate, which is
at once rapid and detailed, may be regarded rather as vigor than
as acceleration of the movement; the sense o. rapidity being
produced by the strongly descriptive character of the language.
This vigor of portrayal, in fact, which is something quite dis-
tinct from the forward movement of the story, may make the
whole scene more truly a description than a narrative.3

Example. — The passage quoted from Tom Brown at Oxford, on
162, above, is an instance of this vigor of descriptive writing. The follow-
ing, a later passage from the same scene, is of the same character : " Then
Miller, motionless as a statue till now, lifts his right hand and whirls the
tassel round his head. ' Give it her now, boys ; six strokes and we 're into

1 De Quincey, Autobiographic Sketches, p. 151.

2 Motley, History of the United Netherlands, Preface.

3 See below, p. 535, on Discursive Narration.

NARRA TION. 525

them.' Old Jervis lays down that great broad back, and lashes his oar
through the water with the might of a giant, the crew catch him up in
another stroke, the tight new boat answers to the spurt, and Tom feels
a little shock behind him, and then a grating sound, as Miller shouts,
' Unship oars, bow and three ! ' and the nose of the St. Ambrose boat
glides quietly up the side of the Exeter, till it touches their stroke oa*." *
Here it is not the omission of details but their vigor which gives the sense
of accelerated movement.

Toward the end of a narrative, as it nears its culmination,
as also in corresponding degree toward any important and
clearly approaching crisis, there is a tendency to quicker
movement, which the writer should heed. When the reader's
anticipation is aroused, the action should hasten by the
directest route to the promised end. At the same time it will
not bear to be summarized too baldly and compendiously; it
must be vigorous as well as rapid.

Accordingly, such a point is not the place to look at scenery,
or to carry on a discursive conversation. The introduction of
a new character in order to untie the knot is regarded as bad
art. Nothing that turns the attention aside from the main
current of action should be admitted; the elements necessary
to the exposition of the narrative being supposably all in and
ready for their solution in event.

Note. — By this it is not necessarily meant that a new vehicle of story
should be adopted ; it may still be descriptive or conversational as before ;
but there is a noticeable motive to make description condensed or impli-
catory, if it must be used at all, and to make dialogue crisp and pointed,
as the goal is evidently neared.

3. Preparative Elements in Movement.2 — The principle inher-
ent in narrative art, of making up the story with implicit
reference to an end, operates to produce a constant sense of

1 HUGHES, Tom Brown at Oxford, Chap. xiii.

2 '• The great source of pleasure is variety. Uniformity must tire at last, though
it be uniformity of excellence. We love to expect; and, when expectation is dis-
ippointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting. For this Impatience of
the present, whoever would please, must make provision. The skilful writer irritut

526 THE LITERARY TYPES.

expectancy; and this naturally sets the writer to studying vari
ous means of preparing for approaching events or situations
Countless shadings and combinations of these are available
the following are some of the most palpable.

i. The element of contrast. It is a natural impulse tc
make calm scenes alternate with stormy or exciting ones, to set
people of contrasted character or appearance over against each
other, to give opposite moods of the same person in dramatic
succession. Life as well as literature is full of such antitheses,
occurring in every variety of shading and impressiveness.

Example. — The most intense situation in Kenilworth, Queen Eliza-
beth's discovery of her favorite Leicester's treachery to Amy Robsart, is
prepared for by a contrasted scene wherein her favor to him reaches its
most flattering expression. The following paragraph points the contrast : —

"If, in the midst of the most serene day of summer, when all is light
and laughing around, a thunderbolt were to fall from the clear blue vault
of heaven, and rend the earth at the very feet of some careless traveller,
he could not gaze upon the smouldering chasm, which so unexpectedly
yawned before him, with half the astonishment and fear which Leicester
felt at the sight that so suddenly presented itself. He had that instant
been receiving, with a political affectation of disavowing and misunder-
standing their meaning, the half uttered, half intimated congratulations of
the courtiers upon the favor of the Queen, carried apparently to its highest
pitch during the interview of that morning; from which most of them
seemed to augur, that he might soon arise from their equal in rank to
become their master. And now, while the subdued yet proud smile with
which he disclaimed those inferences was yet curling his cheek, the Queen
shot into the circle, her passions excited to the uttermost ; and, supporting
with one hand, and apparently without an effort, the pale and sinking
form of his almost expiring wife, and pointing with the finger of the
other to her half dead features, demanded in a voice that sounded to the
ears of the astonished statesman like the last great trumpet-call, that is
to summon body and spirit to the judgment-seat, ' Knowest thou this

mulcet, makes a due distribution of the still and animated parts. It is for want of
this artful intertexture, and those necessary changes, that the whole of a book may
be tedious, though all the parts are praised.*' — Johnson, Lives of the Poets, Vol. i,
{, 219. 1 Scott, Kenilworth, Chap, xxxiv.

NARRA TION. 527

2. The element of climax. This shows itself in narration
by increasing intensity of movement, or some accessory of dia-
logue, description, or comment, so graduated as to fasten
attention on the importance or the distinctive point of the
approaching event. Thus climax is a kind of concentration of
interest on what is to come, by means of preliminary details.

Example. — In the scene between Richard and Saladin, already cited,
the following bit of dialogue, introduced after Richard has placed the iron
bar ready for the blow of his sword, seems intended to lead up to a more
vivid realization of the King's tremendous feat : —

" The anxiety of De Vaux for his master's honor led him to whisper in
English — ' For the blessed Virgin's sake, beware what you attempt, my
liege ! Your full strength is not as yet returned — give no triumph to the
infidel.'

" ' Peace, fool ! ' said Richard, standing firm on his ground, and casting
a fierce glance around — ' thinkest thou that I can fail in his presence ? ' "

The similar preparation for Saladin's contrasted feat blends with the
climax effect a suggestion of contrast : —

" The Soldan, indeed, presently said — • Something I would fain
attempt — though, wherefore should the weak show their inferiority in
presence of the strong ? Yet, each land hath its own exercises, and this
may be new to the Melech Ric' — So saying, he took from the floor a
cushion of silk and down, and placed it upright on one end. — ' Can thy
weapon, my brother, sever that cushion ? ' he said to King Richard.

'"No surely,' replied the King; 'no sword on earth, were it the
Excalibar of King Arthur, can cut that which opposes no steady resistance
to the blow.'

" ' Mark, then,' said Saladin,"1 etc. (see p. 523, above).

3. The element of surprise. Such preparation for an event
as is implied in climax, while it is real and directive, is so
to be managed as not to "give away the case" prematurely.
There is an art of leading on the reader without letting him
guess what is coming; while he is kept alert and in suspense,
the real solution, when it comes, comes as a surprise. This
is an aspect of contrast or antithesis.

1 SCOTT, The Talis man, Chap, xxvii.

528 THE LITERARY TYPES.

Example. — Sir Gareth's combat with the four bandit knights of the
fords, each fiercer and stronger than the one before, ends with a surprise
which every circumstance has elaborately prepared to heighten. The last
knight of the four is the most grewsome and dreaded of all; here is the
description of him as he advances to battle : —

" But when the prince
Three times had blown — after long hush — at last —
The huge pavilion slowly yielded up,
Thro' those black foldings, that which housed therein.
High on a night-black horse, in night-black arms,
With white breast-bone, and barren ribs of Death,
And crown'd with fleshless laughter — some ten steps —
In the half-light — thro' the dim dawn — advanced
The monster, and then paused, and spake no word."

Here is the issue of the combat : —

" At once Sir Lancelot's charger fiercely neigh'd,
And Death's dark war-horse bounded forward with him.
Then those that did not blink the terror saw
That Death was cast to ground, and slowly rose.
But with one stroke Sir Gareth split the skull.
Half fell to right and half to left and lay.
Then with a stronger buffet he clove the helm
As thoroughly as the skull ; and out from this
Issued the bright face of a blooming boy
Fresh as a flower new-born, and crying, ' Knight,
Slay me not : my three brethren bade me do it,
To make a horror all about the house,
And stay the world from Lady Lyonors.
They never dream'd the passes could be past.' " 1

4. The element of aposiopesis. Sometimes, when an impor-
tant event has been so fully anticipated that it suggests itself,
it is left to the reader's imagination to complete. This is espe-
cially the case when it is an event whose details would be dis-
agreeable or distasteful or harrowing. But apart also from
what it spares the reader, this silence throws the event from
its repulsive realistic detail back upon its inner significance,
on which the imagination can exercise itself unlimited.

Examples. — The following suggests the carrying out of the execution
of a criminal, as observed by friends of the victim.

1 Tennyson, Gareth and lunette- 11. 1342-1350 ; 1365-1378,

NARRA TION. 529

" Upon the cornice of a tower a tall staff was fixed. Their eyes were
riveted on it. A few minutes after the hour had struck, something moved
slowly up the staff, and extended itself upon the breeze. It was a black flag.

"'Justice ' was done, and Time, the Archsatirist, had had his joke out
with Tess. The two speechless gazers bent themselves down to the earth,
as if in prayer, and remained thus a long time, absolutely motionless;
the flag continued to wave silently. As soon as they had strength they
arose, joined hands again, and went on." 1

The death of Sydney Carton, a self -sacrificed victim of the Terror in
France, is suggested in a similar way, by aposiopesis. He is one of . a
company whose successive executions are numbered off one by one by
the knitting women. Number Twenty-Two, a woman, precedes him : —

" She kisses his lips ; he kisses hers ; they solemnly bless each other.
The spare hand does not tremble as he releases it ; nothing worse than a
sweet, bright constancy is in the patient face. She goes next before him
— is gone; the knitting women count Twenty-Two.

" ' I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord : he that believeth
in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live : and whosoever liveth and
believeth in me shall never die.'

" The murmuring of many voices, the upturning of many faces, the
pressing on of many footsteps in the outskirts of the crowd, so that it
swells forward in a mass, like one great heave of water, all flashes away.
Twenty-Three. . . .

" They said of him about the city that night, that it was the peacefulest
man's face ever beheld there. Many added that he looked sublime and
prophetic." 2

II. THE VEHICLE OF THE STORY.

Of any ordinary course of events there is, and must be,
more in the story than the telling of the story. A plain
recount of particulars one after another, in the manner and
spirit of annals, leaves the narration bald, uncolored, unsig-
nalized; and it is only events of commanding or sublime
import that will bear such simple treatment. Most subjects
of narration require some vehicle, which shall convey not the

1 HARDY, Tess of the D} (Jrl>ervi//es,p. 455.

2 Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, Hk. iii, Chap. xv.

530 THE LITERARY TYPES.

events alone but the shadings, the settings, the traits of human
and moral interest which serve to make events stand out as
worth the telling. This vehicle of the story, in its various
aspects, is to narration what accessories are to description.

Note. — Of narrative plot, as of other plans of discourse, the truth
indeed holds that " the greater the occasion the more apt men are to be
simple." l And in a supremely great series of events, as for instance the
story of Creation in the first chapter of Genesis, the use of any but the
simplest vehicle of language would be an impertinence ; the events are so
large as to scorn any outside help. But most stories must deal with the
small occurrences of life, things which in themselves, without some deeper
connotation, would have hardly more interest than entries in a diary. It
is' not in these alone, but in what the vehicle of the story brings along
with them, that readers are interested ; while as soon as the events them-
selves rise into greatness and importance, the accessory vehicle is naturally
toned down, or kept plain and severe.

The vehicle of the story may be some medium of treatment,
or may be devised from a subsidiary use of narration itself.
Each of these calls here for notice.

The Supporting Medium. — With the annalistic recount of
particulars, which of course always exists as the inner thread
of the movement, there are inwoven various processes of treat-
ment, which singly or in combination serve to give depth or
zest or buoyancy or color. These constitute a medium through
which the story, with its various involvements, gets itself told
and interpreted. The chief of these are the working of char-
acter, the dialogue, and description.

i. The Characters of a Story. — Mere skill in the construction
of plot, with its residual impression of ingenuity or mystery,
stirs at best only a crude and transient interest. The reader's

1 Higginson. Contemporaries, p. 315.

NARRA TION. 531

inner demand is for something deeper. The story must rise
out of real life; must be moulded on lines of human motive,
human character; must be a transcript from the natural experi-
ence of a soul.1 What gives it a plea upon men's attention is
the fact that its events are compelled by laws of human nature,
and estimated by the moral standards that obtain in ordered
human society. All this is best embodied in the characters
of the story, which, by living their life before our eyes, and
interacting with each other, produce, though in fiction, a true
and living history.2

The importance of this element of narration is seen in the
fact that it is the characters of a story that are most vital,
that are remembered longest, and that become household
names and companions. And writers are held high among
the world's benefactors who succeed in adding permanently
to the company some new name, some vital strain of character
portrayal.

In the management of character the main difficulty is
to make it individual and natural. Conceived, as it must
to some degree be, on standards of motive and endowment, it
is apt to become a mere personified abstraction, or a mere
vehicle for didacticism; this is to be guarded against. The
problem is, while the character embodies an abstract type, to
express this in words and acts of an individual; to make a
unique experience portray some trait of universal recognizable
human nature. The ability to do this cannot come merely
from the library or from inner consciousness; it requires inti-
mate sympathy with men and the affairs of men, and imagina-
tion to put one's self in men's place.

1 " The historical decoration was purposely of no more importance than a back-
ground requires; and my stress lay on the incidents in the development of a soul:
little else is worth study."— Browning, Dedication of Sordello.

-••The true plot (nines out. oi the ( haracter ; that is, the man dees not result
from the things he does, but the things he does result from the man. and so plot
comes out of character ; plot aforethought does not characterize." — W. D. HOWELLS,

532 THE LITERARY TYPES.

Note. — The great characters of fiction have the strange quality of
becoming more real and companionable than the personages of history ;
we have their words, their cast of mind, their impulses of heart, and these
live with us longer than the things they are represented to have done.
Think, for instance, of Hamlet and Othello and Lear, and what they stand
for; of Sir Roger de Coverley and Parson Adams and My Uncle Toby; of
Sam Weller and Micawber and Becky Sharp and Colonel Newcome. It
is with such characters, and their world of ideal and idiosyncrasy, that the
deep and vital elements of literature are inwoven.

2. The Dialogue. — If in the characters is involved the
profounder fibre of the story, from the management of the
dialogue comes largely its more buoyant and popular effect.
Uncritical readers — whose preferences, in fact, ought to be
consulted — like a story "with lots of conversation in it."
The dialogue serves, as it were, to aerate the movement,
which else might grow ponderous and slow. In the give
and take of conversation, too, character itself appears, to
speak for itself ; and many accessory and descriptive ele-
ments slip in lightly and unobtrusively in the words that
are said. And through it all is traceable the forward move-
ment and the approaching end or crisis.

The prime feature to note in dialogue is that it must not
exist for itself. Its office is solely to be, in some direct appli-
cation, the vehicle of a story. Though it may seem, and ought
to seem, as casual and spontaneous as everyday speech, it
is, as matter of fact, managed from point to point, and steered
to an end. Any word of conversation that does not contribute
to one or rnpre of these three things — to advance the story, to
throw light on character, or to supply some necessary descrip-
tive element, is superfluous. Brilliant and sprightly as it may
be in itself, it is irrelevant, and so a blemish, an excrescence.

As to the style of dialogue, the fact that it has to be steered
to an end is apt, in the case of young writers, to make it stiff
and didactic, or goody-goody. It is in fact a most delicate
working-tool to manage. Two elements must be reconciled in

NARRA TION. 533

it : its literary shaping, and its truth to nature.1 In the first
is secured its office in the development of the story, and with
this a certain elevation and acceptability as composed diction.
In the second is secured its limpid spontaneity, and with this
an impression of natural abandon. Each element must be
tempered by the other, until the effect of studied art disap-
pears and only the flavor of nature remains.2

Note. — In the drama the whole literary vehicle is supplied by dialogue ;
and what the novelist gives by recounting and description is supplied by
action, costume, and stage setting. Character bears much the same rela-
tion to both drama and novel ; the inner fibre which it takes action and
dialogue alike to reveal.

3. What Narration owes to Description. — On account of the
intimate connection of narration and description, there are,
on the frontiers of the two, some forms of discourse wherein
it is neither easy nor practical to determine which predominates.
In general, however, it may be said that where the narrative
or story-telling consciousness controls it leads to a more or
less carefully constructed plot; while the descriptive feeling
in predominance is content with the vivid portrayal of a series
of scenes, without special care for the interaction of events.

Throughout the story narration is convoyed by description ;

1 These same two elements have been discussed as applicable to the various kinds
of manufactured diction ; see p. 134, above.

2 " The ordinary talk of ordinary people is carried on in short, sharp, expressive
sentences, which, very frequently, are never completed, the language of which even
among educated people is often incorrect. The novel-writer, in constructing his
dialogue, must so steer between absolute accuracy of language — which would give to
his conversation an air of pedantry — and the slovenly inaccuracy of ordinary talkers
— which, if closely followed, would offend by an appearance of grimace — as to
produce upon the ear of his readers a sense of reality. If he be quite real, he will
seem to attempt to be funny. If he be quite correct, he will seem to be unreal.
And, above all, let the speeches be short. No character should utter much above
a dozen words at a breath, unless the writer can justify to himself a longer flood of
speech, by the specialty of the occasion. — In nil this human nature must be the
novel-writer's guide. . . . But in following human nature he must remember that
he does so with a pen in his hand, ;m<l that the reader who will appreciate human
nature will also demand artistic ability and literary aptitude." — Trollopk, Ai<to-
biography, p. 216.

534 THE LITERARY TYPES.

that is, it relies on descriptive comments or passages for some
essential features of its structure. The main contribution that
description thus makes to the story may be noted under two
heads.

i. Description prepares the scene. The introductory part
of any narrative, whether real or fictitious, must be largely an
account of the setting of dates, places, customs, characters.
Economy requires that just so much description of this kind
be given as is needed to explain the succeeding narrative, and
no more than can be fully utilized by it. Any descriptive
item beyond this is irrelevant.

A descriptive beginning labors under the disadvantage of
delaying the action, and thus not seizing promptly on the
reader's interest; this is evinced in the remark often made
that one "cannot get started" in reading a story. This
disadvantage cannot always be avoided without greater ones;
but sometimes a striking beginning is made, by dialogue or
some narrative element, and the story is carried on in this
way until interest is well aroused; whereupon the descrip-
tive introduction is given in a kind of pause, or, less often,
by some of the interlocutors. Another way is to give the
descriptive introduction piecemeal, in connection with the
successive steps of the action or dialogue.

Note. — The tendency of modern narrative is to leave more than was
formerly done for the reader to divine at the beginning, and in fact often
to utilize the reader's interest in making him conjecture the personages
and descriptive surroundings, and supply the scenery largely for himself.
Browning's inveterate use of this device — plunging into the midst of some
action or monologue without warning — is a well-known source of his alleged
difficulty. The following will exemplify his manner of opening a story : —

" My first thought was, he lied in every word,

That hoary cripple, with malicious eye

Askance to watch the working of his lie
On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford
Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored

Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby." *

1 Browning, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came. st. i.

NARRA TION. 535

Here all the description we gather is that " he " is a gray-headed cripple,
who has all the appearance of trying to victimize the speaker. Other
elements come out furtively in succeeding stanzas, until the situation is
gradually made tolerably clear.

2. Description is the expositor of the narrative. That is,
the bearing of events on one another, the significance of char-
acters, the junctures and turning-points of the action, the
importance of minute features that otherwise would escape
notice are brought out mainly by means of description. It
is thus an element of great importance for keeping the per-
spective and proportion of the whole, and for maintaining the
power of the didactic end.1

Authors differ greatly in the prominence they give to this
descriptive element in narration. With some it is the strong
point, and a lack of completeness in the plot is made up by
its means ; with others it assumes a very subordinate office,
while the plot absorbs the interest. In general we may say
that while pure plot is more immediately absorbing, and
likelier to satisfy the technical rules of narrative, a more
descriptive story, with its deeper study of character and moral
involvements, is of more permanent significance, and likelier
to become a valued literary possession.

Note. — This difference may be illustrated in a measure by Wilkie Col-
lins, who was a master of intricate and exciting plot, but whose stories
taught very little of life ; and his contemporary, William Makepeace
Thackeray, who constructed poor plots, but was always commenting on
his characters and situations, and who is loved as a kindly counsellor in
life, while the names of many of his characters are household words.

II.

Discursive Narration. — An important part in the vehicle of
the story may on occasion be taken by discursive narration,
that is, in general, narrative in which the descriptive feeling
1 For the didactic end, see above, p. 518.

536 THE LITERARY TYPES.

predominates. Introduced into plotted narrative, it may hav
partially the effect of an episode, while at the same time i
may contribute by some secondary incident or feature to th<
progress of the main story.

i. The characteristic of discursive narration, as its name
implies, is that the story is not plotted, does not conduct it:
action to a denouement, but goes merely where the descriptivt
element leads it, or is bounded by the natural lapse of time
The account of an excursion, or a race, or a contest, or a
day's adventures would come under this head. Such accounts
are popularly called descriptions as often as they are called
narratives.

2. The fact that in such narration interest centres not in a
plot but in a scene, occasions an important modification of the
style. When, as in a plot, the action itself is exciting and
absorbing, the manner of recounting is naturally simple ; the
interest does not require the aid of highly wrought expression.1
When, however, it is the scene that absorbs the attention, the
language has to be more the language of description ; it needs
to be rapid, spirited, picturesque, to answer to the life and
intensity of the scene, or to give the sense of energy in action ;
or again it has to be graceful, flowing, charged with sentiment,
to answer to the more tranquil emotions. Thus what the
account loses in plot it makes up in vividness or in imagina-
tive power.

Note. — How discursive or descriptive narration may enter into a larger
plot may be seen in the account of the battle of Waterloo in Victor Hugo's
Cosette (Les Miserables), whose nineteen chapters contribute to the main
story only a single incident, and that a minor one. The spirited style of
discursive narration may be illustrated from the account of the boat race
already quoted from,2 in Tom Brown at Oxford, Chap. xiii.

1 Compare Note, p. 530, above.

2 Pages 162, 524, above.

NARRA TION. 537

III.

Combination of Narratives. — Not only description and dia-
logue, but also distinct lines of narrative, with their varieties
of movement and coloring, may be utilized as the vehicle of
the story in the large sense. In various ways these subsidiary
stories may work in with the main current of events; con-
cerning which ways of combining narratives some cautions
and regulatives need here to be noted.

Episodes. — An episode (from the Greek i-n-cLaoSos, " a coming
in beside ") is a story virtually independent of the main story
though it may contribute some descriptive or character ele-
ment of subordinate import. It is oftenest managed, perhaps,
by being represented as told by one of the personages of the
main action. Its artistic object is to offset the monotony
or strain of the principal action by an action of different
character. This purpose demands that the episode be so dif-
ferent in tone and movement as to afford a decided relief;
that it be not so long or so elaborate as to usurp the interest
of the main story; and yet that it be so carefully finished as
to compensate by some element of beauty or moral signifi-
cance for the reader's impatience at being interrupted.

Note. — An episode, like a digression in a paragraph (see p. 376, above),
is one of the parenthetical elements of discourse, and on its larger scale
is to be treated as a parenthesis, — its range of action smaller and simpler,
its coloring subdued, its style in general less massive and elaborate, than
those of the main story. All this does not hinder it from having a beauty of
its own which may cause it to be remembered with special pleasure, even
after the larger plot has faded from the mind.

Episodes are an old-fashioned device, found mostly in epic
poetry, and in stories from the times when looser construc-
tion and leisurely discursive movement were regarded as a
charm. Modern invented narrative, with its more exacting

53S THE LITERARY TYPES.

technique, is very intolerant of them.1 It demands that tht
vehicle of the story, whatever it is, shall be the vehicle of <?//<
story, and be concerned with one denouement. And whatevei
good effect is produced by the employment of them is better
promoted, it is deemed, by means more consistent with unity
of interest.

Note. — Instances of episode in epic poetry are the parting of Hectoi
and Andromache, in the Iliad, Book vi, a beautiful domestic scene
coming in and relieving scenes of warlike contest ; and the Archangel
Michael's prophecy to Adam of what shall befall his posterity, in Paradise
Lost, Books xi and xii, affording consolation for the bitter agony of man's
fall. In fiction may be mentioned, besides the two examples given in the
footnote, which are from Cervantes's Don Quixote and Fielding's Tom
Jones, respectively, The Confessions of a Fair Saint, in Goethe's Wilhelm
Aleister.

The stories interspersed in Dickens's Pickwick Papers are episodes,
but the whole plan of the story, at least as originally conceived, contem-
plated a work of loose construction, which should be a repository of all
kinds of description and incident.

Interwoven Plots. — What the old writers endeavored to effect
by episodes is in modern art more skilfully accomplished by
interweaving with the principal plot subsidiary threads of story,
which by their different character shall furnish all the relief
and variety needed. The advantage of this over episode is that
all the lines of story converge to a common end, which when
it comes has the effect of having been enriched from various
sources of character, scene, and sentiment.

The subsidiary plots that are interwoven with the main one
may be of various degrees of relative significance. In general

1 " There should be no episodes in a novel. Every sentence, every word, through
all those pages, should tend to the telling of the story. Such episodes distract the
attention of the reader, and always do so disagreeably. Who has not felt this to be
the case, even with ' The Curious Impartinent,' and with the ' History of the Man
of the Hill ' ? And if it be so with Cervantes and Fielding, who can hope to
succeed ? Though the novel which you have to write must b3 long, let it be all one.
And this exclusion of episodes should be carried down into the smallest details." —
Trollope, Autobiography, p. 214.

NARRA TION. 539

they are, and perhaps ought to be, of quite subordinate import,
being hardly more than an occasional glance, so to say, at the
extraneous history of some person in the larger story. Some-
times, however, the secondary plot may be so important as to
rank almost as a twin plot to the main one; though this, in
modern narration, is exceptional.1

Examples. — Kipling's well-known trick of starting a new suggestion
of events and breaking off with the remark " But that is another story "
is a hint that the course of any narrative is continually glancing at other
narratives, and that in many ways stories are crossing and intersecting one
another in life. — Of twin plots a typical example is furnished by Shake-
speare's Merchant of Venice, where the story of Portia and the caskets,
and the story of Antonio and Shylock have entirely different scenes and
are derived from widely separate sources, their sole connecting link, at
first, being the character of Bassanio. The money that he must borrow,
in order to prosecute his suit with Portia, is made the ?notif for interweav-
ing the plots ; and as the action progresses, various characters — Lorenzo
and Jessica, Gratiano and Salarino, and Launcelot Gobbo — are transferred
from one scene to the other, until at the end the two stories are blended
into one culmination, with characters from both active in the solution.

In order to secure the good effect of interwoven plots, two
especial lines of constructive skill are necessary. First, care
is to be taken that each constituent narrative have features
that give it some character of contrast, or strong offset, to the
others, a different tone and key. Secondly, the transition from
one scene to another should be made at points where each is
in its most characteristic mood or significance, its object being
to afford relief from the strain of too long continuance in one
plane of emotion and interest.2

1 " There may be subsidiary plots, which shall all tend to the elucidation of the
main story, and which will take their places as p irt of one and the same work, as
there may be many figures on a canvas, which shall not to the spectator seem to
form themselves into separate pictures." — Trollope, Autobiography, p. 215.

"Avoid a sub-plot, unless, as sometimes in Shakespeare, the sub-plot be a rever-
sion or complement of the main intrigue." — Stevenson, A Humble Remon-
strance, Works, Vol. xiii, p. 356.

2 Macaulay applied tins skill, with consummate effect, to the interweaving of
different threads of historical narrative. His biographer thus describes it: "In

540 THE LITERARY TYPES.

Illustrations. — i. Of markedly contrasted stones, a good exampl
is furnished in Shakespeare's two parts of King Henry IV, where on on
side Falstaff and his swaggering companions are set over against the kin]
and his nobles on the other, in a series of alternating scenes.

2. Transition from one kind of scene to another is frequently exempli
fied in Dickens's Barnaby Rudge. The main story of this novel is ar
historic episode of stormy and tragic import — the Gordon Riots oi
1780. With this, howrever, is interwoven a story of contrasted character,
illustrating no less strikingly all that is good and simple and peaceful, —
the story, namely, of Barnaby and his mother. The following transition
will show how the points of alternation between the stories were chosen
" While the worst passions of the worst men were thus working in the
dark, and the mantle of religion, assumed to cover the ugliest deformities,
threatened to become the shroud of all that was good and peaceful in
society, a circumstance occurred which once more altered the positions of
two persons [Barnaby Rudge and his mother] from whom this history has
long been separated, and to whom it must now return." 1

Synchronism of Events. — In almost every narrative work
that is built on a large scale, history for example, the writer
has to meet the problem how to manage concurring streams of
narrative; a problem arising from the fact that many inci-
dents taking place in widely separated scenes, and many char-
acters wholly unknown to each other may yet be contributing
at one and the same time to bring about a common culmination
of events. In the recounting of the different stories one must
precede; but when the second story traverses events of the
same period, the reader must in some way be made to realize
this fact, and think the two not in succession but side by side.
This calls for the synchronizing of events.

the ' ordering of parts,' which cost him so much labor, his equal will not easily be
found. Each side of the story is brought forward in its proper time and place, and
leaves the stage when it has served its purpose, that of advancing by one step the
main action. Each of these subordinate stories, marked by exquisite finish, leads
up to a minor crisis or turn in events, where it joins the chief narrative with a
certain eclat and surprise. The interweaving of these wellnigh endless threads,
the clearness with which each is kept visible and distinct, and yet is made to con-
tribute its peculiar effect and color to the whole texture, constitute one of the great
feats in literature." — Morison, Macaulay {English Men of Letters), p. 145.
1 Dickens, Barnaby Rudge, Chap. xlv.

NARRA TION. 541

There are several ways in which the events of different
streams of narrative may concur. In fiction the concurrence
is a work of pure invention, being due to the relations of inter-
woven plots to each other. Of this something has already been
said. In history a transaction may have antagonistic sides,
each of which, for completeness, must be represented in turn;
this is seen when opposed forces engage in battle, or when
political parties are arrayed against each other in state policy.
A broader concurrence is seen in the different departments of
a nation's history, as, for instance, its political or constitu-
tional history, its social development, its religious progress,
its literature, — each of which has a distinct story by itself, yet
also many points of relation to other departments.

In the endeavor to impart the sense of synchronism in
events or lines of history, attention should be given both to
the mechanical and to the more literary process, somewhat as
to plan and amplification.

i. Mechanical means of synchronizing are often used to
supplement the literary; but whether so or not they should
be in the writer's underlying plan as a nucleus of treatment.
The chief of these, as occasioned by the needs of historical
writing, are : —

The careful division of the narrative into periods, with
boundaries that may serve as landmarks at once for the
several departments or lines of events.

The frequent construction of summaries and reviews of
progress, with reference to the whole field of view.

The display of events in charts, tabular views, statistics,
and the like, which serve to exhibit many parallel lines of
history in one survey.

Illustration of Choice of Landmark. — For the beginning of the
Elizabethan period in English literature Green chooses the point of time
corresponding with the defeat of the Spanish Armada. In a paragraph
too long to be quoted in full here he summarizes the various lines of

542 THE LITERARY TYPES.

national development — in exploration, in science, in the revival of learr
ing, in national triumph — and then goes on to mention the great name
of authors which graced the period just opening. How truly the date i
well chosen may be seen from the close of his summary : " With its nev
sense of security, of national energy and national power, the whole aspec
of England suddenly changed. As yet the interest of Elizabeth's reigr
had been political and material ; the stage had been crowded with states
men and warriors, with Cecils and Walsinghams and Drakes. Literature
had hardly found a place in the glories of the time. But from the moment
when the Armada drifted back broken to Ferrol, the figures of warriors
and statesmen were dwarfed by the grander figures of poets and philoso-
phers. Amidst the throng in Elizabeth's antechamber the noblest form is
that of the singer who lays the ' Faerie Queen ' at her feet, or of the young
lawyer who muses amid the splendors of the presence over the problems
of the ' Novum Organum.' The triumph at Cadiz, the conquest of Ire-
land, pass unheeded as we watch Hooker building up his 'Ecclesiastical
Polity ' among the sheepfolds, or the genius of Shakspere rising year by
year into supremer grandeur in a rude theatre beside the Thames." 1

A masterly work of history, conducted throughout on synchronistic
lines, and clearly articulated by summaries and landmarks, yet all fused
into one homogeneous narrative, is Professor Barrett Wendell's Literary
History of America.

2. The literary means of synchronizing events has to do
mainly with the proportioning of the various parallel depart-
ments and, in the amplification, with the management of
changes of scene.

As a history must stand predominantly for some one aspect
of life, the writer chooses as basis of the whole the narrative
that most fully represents this. To this narrative he gives
the fullest movement; noting in its course, however, events
that stand out as important landmarks for more than one
course of events, and personages that in the part they play
serve to connect one story with another. In this way the
groundwork is laid for constructing history from more than
one point of view. When now another narrative, contem-
poraneous with the first, is taken up, it is constructed as a

1 Green, Short History of the English People, Chap, vii, Section 7.

NARRA TION. 543

kind of reverse, — giving in summary or rapid reference what
the other has given in full, and enlarging on those points
which the other has designated as landmarks. In this way
the reader is kept aware how the different lines of events
touch one another.

The scene should not be transferred from one narrative to
another except at the significant turning-points of the his-
tory, where one narrative is so finished that it can be trusted
to wait, and so rounded as to be retained in mind as a story of
defined character. The change should be not merely assumed,
but distinctly announced.

Example of Transfer of Scene. — In Carlyle's account of the
battle of Prag, which may illustrate what may be called synchronism at
close quarters, noticeable care is evinced in the changes from one side of
the account to the other. It is from Friedrich's point of view that he
tells the story, and his account of Friedrich's preparations, and of the
ground on which the battle is to be fought, is given as seen from the
Prussian position. Then, in order to describe the Austrian's preparation,
he changes scene, in the following words: "Where the Austrian Camp
or various Tent-groups were, at the time Friedrich first cast eye on them, is
no great concern of his or ours; inasmuch as, in two or three hours hence,
the Austrians were obliged, rather suddenly, to take Order of Battle ; and
that, and not their camping, is the thing we are curious upon. Let us step
across, and take some survey of that Austrian ground, which Friedrich is
now surveying from the distance, fully intending that it shall be a battle-
ground in few hours ; and try to explain how the Austrians drew-up on it,
when they noticed the Prussian symptoms to become serious more and
more." At the end of this description he returns to his original standing-
point, in the following words : " Friedrich surveys diligently what he can
of all this, from the northern verge. We will now return to Friedrich ;
and will stay on his side through the terrible Action that is coming." x

III. NARRATION IN LITERATURE.

Of all the most widespread and popular forms of literature
narration is the basis, furnishing the groundwork and main

1 L'arlvlh, Frederick the Great, Vol. vi, pp. 126, 129.

544 THE LITERARY TYPES.

movement by which they are estimated. The narrative type,
however, rarely appears unmixed, being reinforced, as occasion
rises, by other types, especially description and exposition.

The following, with brief indication of their working prin-
ciples, are the leading forms of literature thus founded on
narration.

History. — This is to be regarded as first in importance,
because, being the recounting of actual events, it represents
the primal and ideal use of narration. Dealing with the
authentic facts of the world, the larger facts with which are
connected the destiny of nations and communities, its art is
first to find by wise investigation what is authentic, and then
so to interpret this that its truth and significance shall be
clearly manifest. Whatever historical writing fails in these,
one or both, fails in art; it remains either raw material or
raw judgment.

The Finding of Historic Fact. — In the investigation of his-
toric fact two endowments of mind are at work, very different
from each other, yet each requiring ideally to be at its best:
minute accuracy and vigorous imagination.1

i. Most deeply of all, and long before he begins the actual
composition, the historian must have the most unwearied
patience in detail and investigation, shrinking not from the
dryest and minutest researches, in his determination to ascer-
tain and verify every smallest fact that may throw light on
his story. To him there can be nothing forbidding, nothing
unimportant. If a small and obscure incident may alter the

1 " ' Stern Accuracy in inquiring, bold Imagination in expounding and filling-up ;
these,' says friend Sauerteig, 'are the two pinions on which History soars,' — or
flutters and wabbles." — Carlyle, Essays, Vol. iii, p. 259. The imagination was
what Carlyle especially valued in his own work, and whenever he had to give
statistics or prosaic information he was fond of introducing them apologetically, as
the work of a certain Dryasdust.

NARRA TION. 545

color of a whole epoch, or an unobtrusive date be the key
to a whole series of facts, it will not do to call any detail
superfluous.1

Note. — The extreme of accuracy and care in ascertaining facts is the
prevailing characteristic of modern historical scholarship, a characteristic,
indeed, which it has in common with the whole scientific method and spirit
of our day. First eminently exemplified, perhaps, in Gibbon, it has become
the indispensable endowment of the standard historian, and is well illus-
trated by such names as Hallam, Carlyle, Macaulay, Motley, Bancroft,
and Parkman.

2. The facts of history have not only to be accumulated by
documentary evidence; they have also to be restored by an
imagination powerful enough to fill the gaps of evidence and
reproduce the past in a living portrayal. Through all the
patient drudgery of research the writer must have the vision
of a rounded and consistent narrative, as the sculptor sees the
statue in the stone. It is only so that he can reproduce the
very form and body of past events as they really are. Thus
the penetrative imagination, in its creative vigor, becomes
a means by which hidden facts are divined and brought to
light.2

1 Of Macaulay's masterly faculty of packing information both into his state-
ments and into the implications, allusions, and figures of his historical works
Thackeray says that these indicate " not only the prodigious memory and vast learn-
ing of this master, but the wonderful industry, the honest, humble previous toil of this
great scholar. He reads twenty books to write a sentence ; he travels a hundred
miles to make a line of description." — Thackeray, Roundabout Papers, p. 198.

2 One of Macaulay's friends thus reports his method of retaining and coordinat-
ing historic facts : " I said that I was surprised at the great accuracy of his informa-
tion, considering how desultory his reading had been. ' My accuracy as to facts,'
he said, ' I owe to a cause which many men would not confess. It is due to my
love of castle-building. The past is in my mind soon constructed into a romance.'
He then went on to describe the way in which from his childhood his imagination
had been filled with the study of history. ' With a person of my turn,' he said, ' the
minute touches are of as great interest, and parhaps greater, than the most impor-
tant events. Spending so much time as I do in solitude, my mind would have rusted
by gazing vacantly at the shop windows. As it is, I am no sooner in the streets
than I am in Greece, in Rome, in the midst of the French Revolution. Precision
in dates, the day or hour in which a man was born or died, becomes absolutely

546 THE LITERARY TYPES.

Note. — It is through the imagination that the real life and relation of
facts are seen ; and of course the personality of the writer must to greater
or less extent color the view that his imagination takes. Some historians,
as Froude and Carlyle, have been charged with letting their imagination
distort or discard facts ; this tendency is, of course, to be guarded against.
And there is perhaps no better safeguard of the reconstructing imagina-
tion than what has already been mentioned as its complemental quality, —
patient, industrious search for facts, and committal to them.

The Interpreting of Historic Fact. — The very manner of
recounting facts once found is an interpretation of them, a
putting of them into such order and relation that their large
significance is seen. But besides this mere recounting of
them, also, two other of the literary types may be employed
as interpreting agencies ; and from the broad lines of treat-
ment thus adopted rise three main kinds of historic writing.1

i. The purely narrative form of history, which is based on
annals and chronicles, aims to give merely the narrative action
of the story, but with a regard to proportion, light and shade,
and the interaction of events, which will impart to the work
something of invented plot. It is this constructive skill that
raises it from the mere raw material to real history; makes a
readable story of what would otherwise be the disjecta membra
of a story.

Examples. — Of the crude journal of events the typical example is the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Some of the older histories, like Clarendon's
History of the Rebellion, and Burnet's history of my Own Time, are con-
ceived in this type of unadorned narrative. More modern examples are

necessary. A slight fact, a sentence, a word, are of importance in my romance.' "
Trevelyan, Life of Macaulay, Vol. i, p. 172. — The extracts from Professor Wilson's
essay, pp. 453 and 455, above, also enforce this same truth of the service of imagina-
tion to history.

1 This classification of historic writing is adopted from De Quincey. " History,
as a composition," he says, " falls into three separate arrangements, obeying three
distinct laws, and addressing itself to three distinct objects. Its first and humblest
office is to deliver a naked, unadorned exposition of public events and their circum-
stances. This form of history may be styled the purely Narrative ; the second form
is that which may be styled the Scenical ; and the third the Philosophic." — De
Quincey, Charlemagne, Works, Vol. vi, p. 138.

NARRA TION. 547

Hume's History of England and Help's Spanish Conquest. The part
that invention or plot may play in history is described from Macaulay's
historical skill, pp. 513, 539, above ; though Macaulay's own work was
rather more comprehensive than mere narrative history.

2. Scenic history is history written with a view to impress-
ing the story on the imagination, making readers realize, if
possible, the event as a kind of picture or pageant. To effect
this purpose, the telling scenes of history are selected for treat-
ment, and narration is combined liberally with description.1

Examples. — De Quincey himself instances, as illustrative of this class,
Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, a stately procession of
picturesque events. Other examples are Carlyle's French Revolution,
Kinglake's Invasion of the Crimea, Macaulay's History of England, and
the several histories of Prescott and Park man. How vital the descriptive
element was in Macaulay's conception of history may be seen from the
paragraph quoted from him, p. 380, above.

3. Philosophic history, which combines with the fundamen-
tal narrative exposition and induction, is confessedly something
beyond a story of events; it is a commentary on events. It
views the course of its narrative in the relations of principles,
motives, cause and effect, laws of human and physical nature.
This manner of treating history is distinctively the modern
manner; and the prevalence of scientific method in all depart-
ments of study has greatly enhanced the esteem in which it is
held. A favorite characterization of history is, "philosophy
teaching by example."2

Examples. — Of historic works predominantly philosophic may be men-
tioned Buckle's History of Civilization, Lecky's History of European

1 " Histories of this class proceed upon principles of selection, presupposing in
the reader a general knowledge of the great cardinal incidents, and bringing forward
into especial notice those only which are susceptible of being treated with distin-
guished effect." — De Quincey.

2 " Under whatever name, it is evident that philosophy, or an investigation of
the true moving forces in every great train and sequence of national events, and an
exhibition of the motives and the moral consequences in their largest extent which
have concurred with these events, cannot be omitted in any history above the level
of a childish understanding." — De Quincey.

548 THE LITERARY TYPES.

Morals, and Hallam's Constitutional History of England. Works com-
bining the narrative and scenic with the philosophic are Green's History
of the English People, Bancroft's History of the United States, and
Motley's History of the Rise of the Dutch Republic.

II.

Biography. — What the living characters are to a work of
fiction, biography is to history; and just as history itself is of
grander import than fiction, the story of the personages who
make up history assumes corresponding nobility of rank in
literature. Biography is one of the most valued, as well as
one of the most instructive literary forms.

The art of composing biography is essentially identical with
all narrative art1; but two different ways of treating bio-
graphic material, with their good points and their cautions,
need here to be considered.

i. Corresponding best, perhaps, with its original idea,
biography may be written as an account of the subject's
life in the biographer's own words throughout, embodying
his selection and proportioning of events, and his judgments
of the subject's character and achievements. The advantage
of this manner of treatment is that it is most favorable to
making a homogeneous work of art, and gives most freedom
in what may be called the action of the narrative. On the
other hand, it is liable to become either over-eulogistic or over-
critical, being subject to the author's infirmities of judgment
or his inability rightly to estimate his subject's character and
motives; and thus it may fail of that sane balance of judg-
ment which is rightly demanded in portrayals of human life.

1 See quotation from Stevenson in the footnote, p. 513, above. He goes on to
say : " Boswell's is, indeed, a very spacial case, and almost a generic ; but it is not
only in Boswell, it is in every biography with any salt of life, it is in every history
where events and men, rather than ideas, are presented — in Tacitus, in Carlyle, in
Michelet, in Macaulay — that the novelist will find many of his own methods most
conspicuously and adroitly handled."

NARRA TION. 549

To execute the task well is an achievement as valuable as it
is difficult.

Examples. — This treatment of biography is exemplified, with greater
or iess success, in Plutarch's Lives, Johnson's Lives of the Poets, Carlyle's
Life of Sterling, Lewes's Life of Goethe.

Our literature contains also some notable autobiographies that ought
not to go unmentioned ; among them are Gibbon's Autobiography, Frank-
lin's Autobiography, and the Personal Memoirs of General Grant.

2. In the modern ideal of biography, however, the writer
or editor's impulse is to efface himself as far as possible, and
employ all available means for making the subject tell his
own story. To this end much use is made of letters, jour-
nals, reports of conversation, estimates of friends, and the like.
Such biography has the advantage of letting the subject's own
words represent him, so that under his own contemporary
views of things can be read his mind.1 It is apt to suffer
correspondingly in being less homogeneous, and generally
in including much that is of very subordinate interest. The
selection of material imposes a very delicate task on the writ-
er's judgment, in excluding what would give offense, or what
would present the subject in an unjust or unfortunate light.

Examples. — That this type of biography is susceptible of the most
masterly art is shown in the fact that Boswell's Life of fohnson, the
acknowledged prince of biographies, is of this class. Other noteworthy
ones are : Lockhart's Life of Sir Walter Scott, Trevelyan's Life of
Macaulay, Stanley's Life of Dr. Arnold, and Lord [Hallam] Tennyson's
Alfred Lord Tennyson ; a Memoir.

An increasing custom is, instead of a formal biography, to publish, with
connecting sketch of life and circumstances, a collection of the subject's
letters ; as instanced in the letters of Matthew Arnold, James Russell
Lowell, and Robert Louis Stevenson. These, however, are not to be
estimated as narrative.

1 " I have the feeling that every man's biography is at his own expense. He
furnishes not only the facts but the report. I mean that all biography is
autobiography. It is only what he tells of himself that comes to be known and
believed." — Emerson, Works, Vol. xi, p. 267.

550 THE LITERARY TYPES.

III.

Fiction. — Under this head are included all the varieties of
purely invented narrative, narrative free to construct and
modify its design according to the requirements of an effec-
tive plot. As fiction is the especial literary art of modern
times, so it is the most discussed and defined. Only its most
salient features, however, can come up for mention here.

Liberties and Limits of Fiction. — In one sense no writer is so
free as the inventor of fiction; in another, as the progress of
the art has increasingly revealed, no one is more rigidly subject
to literary law.

i. The liberties of fiction inhere with the fact that its whole
design is a pure invention directed to an end. According to
its object, — which may be merely to entertain, as in the ordi-
nary novel, to enforce some lesson or advocate some cause,
as in the so-called purpose novel, to portray the depths and
springs of character, as in the psychological novel, — it is abso-
lutely free to construct such a story as will embody its con-
ception, and to group the parts by historical perspective so
as to lay stress on what is important to its end. There are
no facts of actual history to stand in its way, by compelling
insertion or omission ; fiction is the inventor's world, which he
is at liberty to create and people according to his own will.1

2. The limitations of fiction, however, are even more obvious.
It must preserve verisimilitude; and to this end it must deal
not with the exceptional but with the probable. It may choose
its own world of action and scenery, and the range of its choice

1 " The novel, which is a work of art, exists, not by its resemblances to life,
which are forced and material, as a shoe must still consist of leather, but by its
immeasurable difference from life, which is designed and significant, and is both the
method and the meaning of the work." — Stevenson, Works, Vol. xiii, p. 350.
" A good story and real life are such that, being produced in either direction and
to any extent, they never meet. The distance between the parallels does not count :
or rather, it is just a matter for the author to choose." — Couch, Adventures in
Criticism, p. 378.

NARRATION. 551

is limitless, from an Oriental fairy scene or an impossible Gulli-
ver land to the commonplace life of the next street; but, the
scene once determined, all must be congruous and probable,
effect proceeding clearly from cause. Freaks and monstrosi-
ties, of being or action, occur only in actual life ; if they
occur in the course of invented narrative, they destroy the
truth of the portrayal. The aphorism that " truth is stranger
than fiction " is no mere epigram but a literal and necessary
fact.1

Romance and Novel. — Both of these forms of fiction repre-
sent natural and healthy tendencies of human nature. Now
one, now the other may have the greater vogue ; each finds
its own order of mind or its own region of popularity; but to
pronounce a preference for one or the other, as some think
were desirable, would be simply to pronounce on the tendency
of one's own mind.

i. Romance obeys the tendency to emphasize the liberties
of fiction. It deals with scenes and events more striking
and wonderful than everyday life, — with adventure, mystery,
emphatic contrasts, surprising incidents, — or if with common
scenes, it seeks to invest them with a hue and picturesqueness
beyond the ordinary. The traits with which it deals are
not so much minute shades of motive and sentiment as the
more elemental passions, — love, revenge, jealousy, hatred, self-
sacrificing courage.

Thus with romance is especially associated another much-
discussed matter — idealism. Romance is more idealistic than
the novel; it conceives of life as a kind of poetic creation,

1 " The common saying, that truth is stranger than fiction, should properly be
expressed as an axiom that fiction ought not to be so strange as truth. A marvellous
event is interesting in real life, simply because we know that it happened. In a
fiction we know that it did not happen; and therefore it is interesting only as far
as it is explained. Anybody can invent a giant or a genius by the simple process
of altering figures or piling up superlatives. The artist has to make the existence
of the giant or the genius conceivable." — Stephen, Hours in a Library, Vol. i,
p. 217. See also quotation from James, footnote, p. 517, above.

552 THE LITERARY TYPES.

wherein character is made up as it were on a plan and prin-
ciple, and wherein real events receive a new light from their
source in motive and their goal in conduct. In idealism char-
acter is suffused to greater or less degree by the portrayer's
fancy.

Examples. — Typical examples of the romantic in fiction may be found
in Uumas's D'Artagnan cycle, The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After,
and The Vicotnte de Bragelonne. In English Sir Walter Scott is the
great master of romance. Other examples are Cervantes's Don Quixote,
Victor Hugo's Notre-Dame and Les Miserables. Examples of stories
made romantic by poetic treatment of common themes are found in Haw-
thorne's The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables, and The Marble
Faun. See the preface to The House of the Seven Gables for some interest-
ing remarks on romance.

2. The novel holds itself more strictly within the limitations
of fiction. It aims to produce not so much the interest of
something new as of something recognizable as true to ordi-
nary experience. Dealing with common life and events, it yet
penetrates more into the finer motives and sentiments of char-
acter, and with the manners of the society in which we all move.

As romance is naturally connected with idealism, so the
novel tends to the realistic; that is, in recounting the elements
of common life, it tends to give them as they appear, uncolored
by fancy. Realism is to idealism somewhat as photography
is to painting: it aims at a faithful transcript of facts, the
small and homely along with the more imposing. Its abuse
is to think too much, relatively, of dull detail, or of unsavory
facts, under plea of faithfulness to nature, — an abuse to be
remedied by a higher estimate of values in life.

Examples of Novel. — Typical examples of the novel, as distin-
guished from the romance, may be found in the works of Jane Austen,
Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, etc. Other examples are :
George Eliot's Adam Bede and The Mill on the Floss ; Thackeray's Vanity
Fair and The Newcomes ; Howells's The Rise of Silas Lapham and A
Hazard of New Fortunes.

NARRA TION. 553

Drama. — This is to be regarded as narrative wherein the
characters speak and act for themselves, making the story
before the spectators' eyes; while all the descriptive back-
ground is supplied by scenery and costume, or incidentally
through the action and dialogue.

i. The plot of the drama must be more rigorous and inter-
related, less tolerant of episode, than that of any other form
of story. Every part must contribute clearly and obviously
to the completed whole, and the action must be such as can
be displayed on a stage. Hence drama must deal with the
large and external elements of character, rather than with
subtleties of sentiment and thought.

2. The characters reveal themselves more quickly, and results
come about by directer means than in real life. This comes
of course from the limited time available for representation;
the result is that they reveal themselves in more pointed and
significant terms than in the novel.

3. In movement, the drama must keep its audience aware
of the working of cause and effect. It is not sufficient that an
event occur; we must be able to see what previous conditions
or circumstances brought it about. This excludes the element
of accident, as a means of solving a plot; any event, to be dra-
matic, must have its cause and agencies in some way indicated
before the spectator's eyes.

CHAPTER XVI.
EXPOSITION.

With the coming two chapters we enter upon an important
new phase of invention. We make transition from particu-
larized objects to generalized, — from things seen, heard,
depicted, as matters of observation, to things conceived,
identified, classified, as matters of penetrative and systema-
tized thinking. We have been considering traits and acts
that distinguish objects as individuals ; we are now to look for
the traits and acts that unite individuals into classes.1 And as
we did in description and narration, so here we consider our
subject first, so to say, in its statical, then in its dynamical
aspect, first as something at rest, to be set forth as it is, and
then as something in movement to an end ; which distinc-
tion gives rise to the two literary types, exposition and
argumentation.

Definition of Exposition. — Exposition is the fixing of mean-
ings by generalization, that is, the exhibiting of objects,
material or spiritual, as conceived and organized in thought.

Let us briefly analyze this definition.

i. It is solely with the exhibiting of objects — that is,
setting forth their meaning, without taking sides — that
exposition is concerned. It does not raise the question of
the truth or falsity of a thing ; that belongs to another proc-
ess ; it seeks rather what the thing is, what is its real
nature, its purport, its range and bounds. It is time enough,
when this is ascertained, to consider whether the thing, as

1 Compare what is said about description, p. 477, 2, above.
554

EXPOSITION. 555

thus fully revealed, proves itself, or whether further proof of
argument is needed.

Note. — As related to argumentation, exposition is like preparing a
term or question for debate ; or, to use another comparison, like coming
to an understanding on a question of litigation, without bringing it into
court. How important this preliminary may be, can be seen from the fol-
lowing description of Abraham Lincoln's method as a jury lawyer: "His
more usual and more successful manner was to rely upon a clear, strong,
lucid statement, keeping details in proper subordination and bringing for-
ward, in a way which fastened the attention of court and jury alike, the
essential point on which he claimed a decision. ' Indeed,' says one of his
colleagues, ' his statement often rendered argument unnecessary, and often
the court would stop him and say, "if that is the case, w7e will hear the
other side." ' " »

2. The objects of exposition, like those of description, are
material or spiritual ; but while in description we look for
unique traits, here we look for general. Exposition is merely
a different approach to its object, an approach by way of the
class rather than by way of the individual. Not the thing
itself, in fact, but the notion of the thing, with all the essen-
tial parts and qualities covered by the name, is what expo-
sition deals with.

Examples of Contrasted Treatment. — The difference of principle
in description and exposition may be illustrated by the following extracts,
which both deal with the same object, — the one treating it as an individ-
ual, the other as a generalized notion.

i. Tennyson thus describes an oak : —

" A storm was coming, but the winds were still,
And in the wild woods of Broceliande,
Before an oak, so hollow, huge, and old,
It look'd a tower of ivied mason-work,
At Merlin's feet the wily Vivien lay." 2

Here the qualities selected for mention are only such as can be attributed
to some one oak — true of some oaks, but not necessarily true; an oak is
just as truly an oak if it is neither hollow, huge, old, nor like an ivied tower.

1 Nicolay and IIay, Life of Lincoln, Vol. i, p. 307.

2 Tennyson, Merlin and Vivien, 11. 1-5.

556 THE LITERARY TYPES.

2. A scientific article on the oak thus begins : —

"Oak {Querais), a genus of trees and shrubs of the natural orde
Cupuliferae, having monoecious flowers, the male in slender catkins o
spikes, the female solitary or clustered ; the fruit a nut or acorn, oblong
ovoid, or globular, protruding from a woody cup formed by the enlargec
scales of the involucre; the leaves are deciduous or evergreen, alternate
entire, lobed, or sinuate. The species, of which there are about 300, an
spread over nearly the whole of the northern hemisphere, except the
extreme north. They are more numerous in America than in Europe; £
few are found in Asia, none in tropical Africa, in Australia, or in South
America except about the Andes."1

Here the information given pertains to any and every oak tree ; it must
be like this to be an oak. Further, the information pertains not to how
the tree looks, but to its essential nature, the notion we are to form as
corresponding to the name.

3. Because the object of exposition is exhibited as con-
ceived and organized in the mind, that is, as a notion, not as
an individual, the effectiveness of its presentation depends
on mind-qualities, — on acumen, clear thinking, breadth. A
logical notion is a human creation, not an object of nature.
By this it is not meant to imply that generalization is a con-
ventional or arbitrary process. The qualities and resem-
blances from which it is made up really exist, and it is an
authentic interpretation of what is in the nature of things.
But the detecting of these, and the grouping or separating
by vital traits, is the work of a scientifically trained mind,
requiring ideally the patience and judicial temper of science.

Note. — Not less truly in exposition than in description, "the eye sees
only what it brings with it the power of seeing"; but while in the describee
object there is something outstanding to strike on the sight, in th
expounded object the power behind the sight must go forth to discovei
and virtually to create, its concept. It is mind smiting itself into nature
and on its own plans reconstructing nature.

As exposition, though dealing with real objects, is so
largely a matter of terms and logical distinctions, it takes

1 Chambers's Cyclofcedia, s.v.

EXPOSITION. 557

two very different aspects, according as the things themselves
or the terms which represent them are in mind. This primal
distinction between notions and names furnishes the basis
on which the present chapter is divided.

I. EXPOSITION OF THINGS.

A logical notion, though created and ordered by the mind,
has its basis in the nature of things ; it is a reality to be
interpreted independently of the symbols or terms which
name it. The interpretation of symbols, to be considered
later, is an affair of language and literary criticism ; the
exposition of things, though it has to use language as a ter-
minology, is an affair of intrinsic analysis and classification.

Two directions there are in which the exposition of things
may be carried. They may be exhibited intensively, that is,
in the direction of their depth ; or extensively, that is, in
the direction of their breadth. In the first case they are
treated as species in a class ; the business of the exposition
being to exhibit the specific traits common to all the indi-
viduals. In the second case they are treated as a whole
class ; the business of the exposition being to assemble and
name the various species that together make up the class.
These processes, it will be observed, are opposite, or rather
complementary, to each other. The general term to denote
the first is definition ; to denote the second, division.

Note. — The relation of the terms genus, species, and individual should
here be noted. They make a logical series, the species being intermediate
between the genus and the individual. With the genus, or class, exposi-
tion by division deals ; and the traits it assembles, because they apply to
the whole class, are called general. With the species exposition by defini-
tion deals ; and the traits it names, because they are confined to the species,
are called specific ; in like manner an individual used to exemplify specific
traits is called a specimen. As for the individual, and its traits or acts, not
exposition but description deals with those ; see above, pp. 477, 2, and 555, 2.

558 THE LITERARY TYPES.

Exposition Intensive ; Definition. — Adopting the broad
meaning suggested in the derivation of the word, we may
say that to define a thing is to determine its limits or
bounds (Jines), to exhibit the characteristics that set it off
from other things. Whatever goes to determine in language
the limits of an idea, whether it be strict logical definition
or the literary amplifications and similitudes that serve to
make those limits clear to unscientific minds, belongs in the
large sense to the definition of the idea.

An object so defined is viewed as one of a class, not as a
class in itself; the qualities sought by the definition, there-
fore, are such as distinguish it from all others in the class
assumed for it.

Example. — If, for instance, our endeavor is to define an animal, we
think of the broad class of, say, material things ; in which case we have
vegetables and minerals in the same class to compare it with and to dis-
tinguish it from. Whatever we take as a defining quality must not belong
to these. At the same time our defining quality must belong to all ani-
mals, must be deep enough to characterize alike an elephant, a human
being, an eagle, a crawfish, — it takes no account of classes inside its term.
If we find the qualities to be life, organism, sensation, voluntary motion,
these traits have presumably been tested with reference to the other species
of the class, and found not to belong to minerals and vegetables. Two of
the qualities, indeed, life and organism, an animal shares with a vegetable,
but the mineral does not have them ; and when it comes to sensation and
voluntary motion, the vegetable in turn is excluded, leaving these as the
specific qualities of the animal. Thus, as related to each other species of
the class, the animal maintains its separateness. Some such process of
comparison and exclusion as this, more or less comprehensive, obtains in
the making of every definition.

In the effort to make this kind of exposition complete, and
especially to give it literary acceptability, several stages or
processes of defining have here to be noted*

EXPOSITION.

559

i. The Core of Definition. — With the broad range of defi-
nition in mind, this is the term by which we may designate
its inner mould, what is otherwise called logical definition.
By this is meant a concise statement of the trait or traits
most essential to an object. In its strict construction it is
reducible to two processes. First, the object to be denned
is identified with a class of objects. Secondly, its particular
place in the class is determined by some distinguishing trait
or traits. Another name for logical definition is, definition
by genus and differentia, these Latin terms denoting what is
determined, respectively, in these two stages of the state-
ment.

Examples. — The common definition of mathematics as "the science
of quantity " represents each of these stages by a single word. Its class
or genus, " science," ranks it alongside of biology, physics, and the numer-
ous other sciences ; its species, " quantity," differentiates it from all other
sciences by giving it a field all its own.

Some other accepted definitions may here be tabulated by genus and
differentia.

Elasticity is .
Literature is

A circle is . .

Faith is

Genus,
the power of bodies

the written record .

a plane figure

certitude

Differentia.

to recover their form after
compression.

of valuable thought having
other than merely prac-
tical purposes.

contained by one line every-
where equally distant
from a point within called
the centre.

with respect to matters
in which verification is
unattainable.

Such are strict logical definitions; but also under the more extended
and literary definitions may generally be found a recognition of genus and
species, each of which is carefully determined. Take for example the
following: —

560

THE LITERARY TYPES.

" By Conservatism
is meant

that preference for and

indulgence to

that faith in

that distrust of

what is already established,
what has been tried,
and that distrust of what exists only in specu-
lation,
which never wholly forsakes every sound
politician, of whatever party." *

Here the genus is determined not by a single term, but by a cumulative
employment of related terms2; while the successive terms of the differ-
entia are chosen according to their fitness to the genus.

Of a logical definition there are four necessary requisites: —
i. It should cover all cases or individuals of the idea
denned.

2. It should exclude all objects not bearing the same name.3

3. It should not introduce for denning purposes the name
of the thing to be defined, or any direct derivation of it.

Note. — This crude use of names in definition has sometimes been
shown up humorously; as when an archdeacon was defined by Punch as
" a man who performs archdiaconal functions." Shakespeare4 thus makes
Bardolph define accoynmodated: " Accommodated : that is, when a man is,
as they say, accommodated; or when a man is, being, whereby a' may be
thought to be accommodated; which is an excellent thing."

4. It should be expressed in terms simpler and more
familiar than the term that designates the defined object.
This applies also to a definition for scientific distinctior
which, though employing technical terms, is essentially
simplification in the vocabulary of that science.

Note. — The definition of Oak, on p. 556, above, exemplifies the scie
tific manner of defining in technical terms.

1 Payne, Burke, Select Works, Vol. i, Introd., p. xi.

2 See under Finding the Right Shade of Meaning, p. 47, above.

3 " A complete definition distinguishes the thing defined from everything else ;
it denotes, as you know, 'the species, the whole species, and nothing but the
species.' " — Stedman, The Nature and Elements of Poetry, p. 20.

4 King Henry IV, Act iii, Scene 2.

EXPOSITION. 561

Of definitions not sufficiently mindful of simplifying terms, Dr. Johnson's
famous definition of Network has caused much amusement : " Network
(net and work). Anything reticulated or decussated, at equal distances,
with interstices between the intersections."

To these should ordinarily be added, as a secondary requi-
site, brevity. That is, the expositor should name the smallest
number of attributes that will be adequate to distinguish the
thing, and these should be the most essential, the most char-
acteristic possible.

Nothing in literature is more difficult to originate, or when
originated a more valued achievement, than an accurate defi-
nition. A good definition takes its place at once in the stand-
ard currency of thinking minds ; and the keenest intellects
are at work all the while in the endeavor to get the great
objects of thought in every department into closer and
clearer bounds of definition.

Note. — Many of the largest and commonest concepts, — as, for instance,
poetry, inspiration, revelation, eloquence, nature, imagination, humor, —
are the despair of logical definers, not because they are vague, but because
they are so complex and inclusive. Of a certain large concept of this kind
the answer once made by a thinker who was asked to define it was : " I
know when you do not ask me."

A felicitous definition may become famous and make its author famous.
Such is Buffon's epigrammatic definition of style, " The style is the man
himself," and Dean Swift's definition of it as " proper words in proper
places." Nothing is said here, by the way, of the adequacy of these defini-
tions,— only of their celebrity. Matthew Arnold in his day had an emi-
nently defining mind ; and some of his definitions were the centres of much
discussion among thinkers, for and against. As instances, take his defi-
nition of criticism, " a disinterested endeavor to learn and propagate the
best that is known and thought in the world"; and his definition of God
as " the enduring power not ourselves, which makes for righteousness."
His prose is valuable reading to stimulate clear-cut and discriminated
thinking.

2. Analysis of Definition. — For literary and popular pur-
poses logical definition constitutes only a core or nucleus of

562 THE LITERARY TYPES.

the exposition ; and, important though it is, it is too severe
and compact to be impressive. Some means of detaining the
reader's mind upon it, and of making him suitably aware of
what in it is distinctive and vital, have to be adopted.1 The
core is still there, but around it has to be built a body of
literary and amplifying tissue, which in a liberal sense we
may call the analysis of the definition.

The following are the most salient ways in which such
analysis is conducted.

i. By explaining the terms in which the definition is
expressed ; which, though presumably more simple than the
name of the notion, may still need exegesis in order that
their exact shading, or inclusion, or distinction from other
terms, may be exhibited. The means employed thus to deter-
mine the significance of words are given on p. 576, below.

2. By explication of the definition as a proposition ; that
is, by enlarging on its statements, pointing out what it
implies or involves, and concentrating attention on what is
of special importance. This kind of explication is treated of,

PP- 578~582> below.

3. By what is called genetic definition (from ycVco-ts, gener-
ation, genesis) ; that is, instead of treating the object by genus
and differentia, giving rather its causes or agencies and then
describing how it is produced ; as when, for instance, in
defining a circle, the expositor does not say what it is but
shows how to draw one. This way of defining, while for ordi-
nary uses equally accurate, is much more lucid and suggestive
than the severe logical definition.

Examples. — 1. For examples of the exegesis of terms, see p. 577,
below. Not all terms have to be thus fixed; and it is poor economy to
explain terms that do not contribute something vital to the exposition, or
that are not utilized. This is a matter for the expositor's good sense.

2. Examples of explication occur at the beginning of all these chapters

1 For these as objects of amplification in general, see above, pp. 462-464.

EXPOSITION. 563

on The Literary Types, where first the definition is given, then a series of
paragraphs singling out its vital points; see, for instance, the definition of
Description, on pp. 477 sq., above.

3. The following account of the Grand Style is a genetic definition;
that is, it goes to the causes and describes how the grand style is pro-
duced; further, when this is done, it goes on to explicate the definition
step by step, fixing chief attention finally on one particular stage of it : —
" Let us try, however, what can be said, controlling what we say by exam-
ples. I think it will be found that the grand style arises in poetry, when a
noble nature, poetically gifted, treats with sifnplicity or with severity a serious
subject. I think this definition will be found to cover all instances of the
grand style in poetry which present themselves. I think it will be found
to exclude all poetry which is not in the grand style. And I think it con-
tains no terms which are obscure, which themselves need defining.1 Even
those who do not understand what is meant by calling poetry noble, wTill
understand, I imagine, what is meant by speaking of a noble nature in a
man. But the noble or powerful nature — the bedeutendes Individuum of
Goethe — is not enough. For instance, Mr. Newman has zeal for learning,
zeal for thinking, zeal for liberty, and all these things are noble, they
ennoble a man ; but he has not the poetical gift : there must be the poet-
ical gift, the ' divine faculty,' also. And besides all this, the subject must
be a serious one (for it is only by a kind of license that we can speak of
the grand style in comedy) ; and it must be treated with simplicity or sever-
ity. Here is the great difficulty : the poets of the world have been many ;
there has been wanting neither abundance of poetical gift nor abundance
of noble natures ; but a poetical gift so happy, in a noble nature so cir-
cumstanced and trained, that the result is a continuous style, perfect in
simplicity or perfect in severity, has been extremely rare. One poet has
had the gifts of nature and faculty in unequalled fulness, without the cir-
cumstances and training which make this sustained perfection of style pos-
sible. Of other poets, some have caught this perfect strain now and then,
in short pieces or single lines, but have not been able to maintain it through
considerable works ; others have composed all their productions in a style
which, by comparison with the best, one must call secondary." 2

3. Supplementation of Definition. — Exposition intensive, in
its search for the whole depth or inclusion of an idea, is far

1 Observe that the definition, as soon as made, is tested for three of the requi-
sites of definition given on p. 560, above.

2 ARNOLD, On Translating Homer, p. 265.

564 THE LITERARY TYPES.

from satisfied with logical definition, however enlarged or
analyzed. Various supplemental processes there are, which
on occasion are resorted to, either as an aid to unskilled
minds or as a means of bringing the object explained into
the sphere of everyday ideas. The following are the most
prominent of these.

i. Logical description, taking an object which severe
definition would leave too compendious or abstruse, labors to
make it plain and familiar. In its mechanism and accessories
it is not unlike other description ; only, being an instrument
of exposition, it deals with a generalized object and gives
not individual but class details.1 These details, however, in
accordance with the descriptive spirit, are selected for their
picturing or simplifying quality ; and thus they supplement
the definition by giving derived and secondary character-
istics, in addition to the primitive and generative ones.

Examples. — Logical description can best be exemplified by comparing
it with a definition. Take for instance the scientific definition of a steam-
engine, and put by the side of it a description of the same : —

Definition : " A
steam-engine is a ma-
chine in which the
elastic force of steam
is the motive power."2

Description : " The name steam-engine
most persons brings the idea of a machine of the
most complex nature, and hence to be understood
only by those who will devote much time to the
study of it; but he that can understand a common
pump may understand a steam-engine. It is, in
fact, only a pump in which the fluid passing through
it is made to impel the piston instead of being
impelled by it, that is to say, in which the fluid
acts as the power, instead of being the resistance."3

Here is selected the characteristic that may be most universally under-
stood, " a pump," and this serves both to picture and to explain the
steam-engine, while it helps rather than interferes with the definition.

Logical description is of special service in the exposition of processes.

1 Compare p. 477, 2, above.

2 Gage, Text-Book of the Elements of Physics, p. 175.

3 Arnott, Elements of Physics, Vol. i, p. y]^.

■I

EXPOSITION. 565

A good example is Dr. Andrew Wilson's description of the process of
inflammation, and the function of the white blood corpuscles (leucocytes)
therein, under the analogy of a battle. Here are a few sentences : —

" The leucocytes are the defending army, their roads and lines of com-
munications the blood-vessels. Every composite organism maintains
a certain proportion of leucocytes as representing its standing army.
When the body is invaded by bacilli, bacteria, micrococci, chemical or
other irritants, information of the aggression is telegraphed by means of
the vaso-motor nerves (those governing the movements of blood-vessels),
and leucocytes rush to the attack; re-enforcements and recruits are quickly
formed to increase the standing army, sometimes two, three, or four times
the normal standard. In the conflict cells die, and often are eaten by their
companions ; frequently the slaughter is so great that the tissue becomes
burdened by the dead bodies of the soldiers in the form of pus, the activity
of the cell being testified by the fact that its protoplasm often contains
bacilli, etc., in various stages of destruction."1

2. Exemplification, as an expository process, stands next
in importance to definition itself. It is the selection of an
individual object to represent the species ; for which reason a
scientific example is called a specimen. The obvious utility
of exemplification, to translate from abstract to concrete, is
seen in the extensive use of pictures and models, in the quoted
sentences appended to definitions of words in dictionaries,
and the like.

Note. — It seems almost superfluous to give examples of exemplifica-
tion here, because all the principles, usages, and processes treated of in
the present text-book are illustrated by exemplification. This, as follow-
ing immediately on definition, makes the whole book a work of exposition,
employing these two processes as its paramount instruments.

Two qualities should be had in mind, in choosing an
example. First, its embodiment of the idea or property in
question should be salient and striking, as it is selected
for this particular thing. Secondly, it should be as pure
and typical as possible, and as free from extraneous or

1 The Battle of the Cells, Harper's Magazine, Vol. xciii, p. 143. These particular
sentences, however, are quoted by J)r. Wilson from Mr. J. Bland Sutton.

566 THE LITERARY TYPES.

exceptional elements. A perfect exemplification is wellnigh
as valuable, in the realm of interpretation, as a perfect
definition.

Note. — If, for instance, we were seeking to exemplify crystallization
by exhibiting a real crystal, we should look for one as free as possible from
imperfections, and we should leave out of account the breaks and disloca-
tions that are found in the majority of specimens. These are individual
and accidental ; they do not belong to the class. In like manner, especially
in exemplifying intricate subjects, it is advisable to illustrate, as far as may
be, one thing at a time ; an example may easily be confusing by being too
complex.

3. Antithesis, in exposition, is a very lucid means of
exhibiting important distinctions between ideas that super-
ficially are much alike. Its use, therefore, is. not so much in
displaying contrary ideas, — which contrast, in fact, is obvious
without explanation, — as in finding the point where two like
ideas are in sharp distinction ; which point will be found to
contain the most distinctive feature of each.

Examples. — The following, drawing a distinction between poetry and
eloquence, ideas in large proportion alike, reduces this distinction to a ser-
viceable antithesis : —

" Poetry and eloquence are both alike the expression or utterance of
feeling: but, if we may be excused the antithesis, we should say that elo-
quence is heard ; poetry is overheard. Eloquence, supposes an audience.
The peculiarity of poetry appears to us to lie in the poet's utter uncon-
sciousness of a listener. Poetry is feeling confessing itself to itself in
moments of solitude, and embodying itself in symbols which are the near-
est possible representations of the feeling in the exact shape in which it
exists in the poet's mind. Eloquence is feeling pouring itself out to other
minds, courting their sympathy, or endeavoring to influence their belief, or
move them to passion or to action." *

The following, by a skilful exegesis of terms, shows that happiness
and joy, though ideas almost wholly coincident, have a point of exact
antithesis : —

" Now there is even a distinction of kind between the two, a distinction
beautifully represented in the words themselves. Thus happiness, according

I Mill, Dissertations and Discussions, Vol. i, p. 97.

EXPOSITION. SGI

to the original use of the term, is that which happens, or comes to one
by a hap, that is, by an outward befalling, or favorable condition. Some
good is conceived, out of the soul, which comes to it as a happy visitation,
stirring in the receiver a pleasant excitement. It is what money yields, or
will buy; dress, equipage, fashion, luxuries of the table; or it is settlement
in life, independence, love, applause, admiration, honor, glory, or the more
conventional and public benefits of rank, political standing, victory, power.
All these stir a delight in the soul, which is not of the soul, or its quality,
but from without. Hence they are looked upon as happening to the soul
and, in that sense, create happiness. ... But joy differs from this, as
being of the soul itself, originating in its quality. And this appears in
the original form of the word ; which, instead of suggesting a hap, literally
denotes a leap, or spring. . . . The radical idea then of joy is this; that
the soul is in such order and beautiful harmony, has such springs of life
opened in its own blessed virtues, that it pours forth a sovereign joy from
within. The motion is outward and not toward, as we conceive it to be in
happiness. It is not the bliss of condition, but of character. There is, in
this, a well-spring of triumphant, sovereign good, and the soul is able thus
•to pour out rivers of joy into the deserts of outward experience. It has a
light in its own luminous centre, where God is, that gilds the darkest nights
of external adversity, a music charming all the stormy discords of outward
injury and pain into beats of rhythm, and melodies of peace."1

Here the antithesis is : happiness comes from without ; joy springs up
from within.

Another application of antithesis in exposition is the
employment of the obverse, as means of exhibiting what
the idea is by setting over against it what it is not. This has
been sufficiently explained and exemplified above, p. 466, 2.

4. Analogy, by which is meant similarity of relation in
diverse subjects, is a much-valued means of making clear
the relations between ideas. Taking obscure and remote
principles of things, it makes them familiar by identifying
them with principles that we see all around us ; and thus
the abstruse becomes simple.

Examples. — The following is an illustration, and so an exposition,
of the sudden outbreak of the French Revolution : " But thus may any
chemical liquid, though cooled to the freezing-point, or far lower, still

1 Bushnell, Sermons for the New Life, p. 226.

563 THE LITERARY TYPES.

continue liquid; and then, on the slightest stroke or shake, it at once rushes
wholly into ice. Thus has France, for long months and even years, been
chemically dealt with ; brought below zero ; and now, shaken by the Fall
of a Bastille, it instantaneously congeals : into one crystallised mass, of
sharp-cutting steel ! " l

The following analogy is used to illustrate how one's own egoism is the
centre of its peculiar world of events : " An eminent philosopher among
my friends, who can dignify even your ugly furniture by lifting it into the
serene light of science, has shown me this pregnant little fact : Your pier
glass or extensive surface of polished steel, made to be rubbed by a house-
maid, will be minutely and multitudinously scratched in all directions; but
place now against it a lighted candle as a centre of illumination, and lo !
the scratches will seem to arrange themselves in a fine series of concentric
circles round that little sun. It is demonstrable that the scratches are
going everywhere impartially, and it is only your candle which produces
the nattering illusion of a concentric arrangement, its light falling with an
exclusive optical selection. These things are a parable. The scratches
are events, and the candle is the egoism of any person now absent — of
Miss Vincy, for example. Rosamond had a Providence of her own, who
had kindly made her more charming than other girls, and who seemed to
have arranged Fred's illness and Mr. Wrench's mistake in order to b
her and Lydgate within effective proximity."2

It is often remarked that analogy, as a form of argument,
is precarious. This is true ; in the next chapter we shall see
why.8 As an instrument of exposition, however, analogy is
of great value. Its distinctive function is to illustrate ; in
argument, too, this is so. While we must be cautious about
depending on it as establishing the truth of a position, yet
not infrequently it may so clearly elucidate the relations of
the question that the truth of it becomes self-evident.

II.

Exposition Extensive: Division. — Treating an object not as
a specific thing or member of a class but as a whole class in
itself — determining, that is, the breadth or range over which

1 Carlyle, French Revolution, Vol. i, p. 205.

2 George Eliot, Middlemarch, Chap, xxvii.

8 See below, p. 615. For analogy in general, see above, p. 77.

jnt,

EXPOSITION. 569

its application extends — results in a process complementary
to definition, the process, namely, of division.

Note. — In defining an animal, on p. 558, above, the qualities sought
were what belonged to the object before any thought of its different kinds
was considered. The animal was simply viewed as a species in the larger
class of material things, and the features that distinguished it from other
material things were singled out. But now, in turn, we may take this
same object as a class, and institute inquiry how many kinds of animals
there are, and on what principles they are distinguished from each other;
this leads to determining the various classes, orders, genera, and species
that make up the vast animal kingdom.

Division, as a literary process, and classification, as a
scientific process, are in principle exactly the same, requiring
the same mental acumen and accuracy. The literary view is
here adopted because the capacities of average readers must
be kept in mind, and therefore not thoroughness alone but
simplicity must be worked for. In literary presentation the
processes of division and subdivision are not ordinarily car-
ried to so minute stages as scientific severity requires ; though
as far as they go they are subject to the same laws.

For the requirements of a rhetorical outfit there are to be
distinguished two aspects of division.

1. Logical Division. — This is the core of exposition exten-
sive, as logical definition is of exposition intensive. On its
scale, large or minute, it works for thoroughness ; seeking,
that is, to cover a whole range of concepts in such way that
no distinction of that scale be left unaccounted for. Its
highest problem is to make its work self-verifying ; that is,
to secure such mutual relation between the members, and
such covering of the field traversed, as shall be a guarantee
to the mind of writer and reader of a complete and closed
circuit. For this, rules go only a little way ; it must come
mostly by logical tact.

The following details of logical division, with the laws
governing them, must be kept in mind.

570 THE LITERARY TYPES.

i. The principle of division. By this is meant a certain
definite character attributed to the whole field of view, tc
which all the dividing members are equally related. It is
analogous to the point of view as determining the details of
a field of description.1

Note. — It is obvious, then, that the same field of concepts may be
divided in many different ways, according to the principle adopted. Thus,
on the principle of race, mankind would be divided into Caucasians, Mon-
golians, Malays, etc. ; on the principle of religion, into Christians, Jews,
Mohammedans, etc.; on the principle of language, into Aryans, Semites,
Turanians, etc. So, too, the people of any nation are popularly divided
on the principle of social orders, into the aristocracy (or upper classes), the
middle class, the lower classes.

In the beginning of his Introduction to the Classification of Animals
Professor Huxley, after mentioning several principles of classification
adopted by others — as the principle of physiological function, the principle
of geographical distribution, the principle of succession in time (as control-
ling in Paleontology) — avows as his principle of classification, anatomical
structure.

Two things are requisite in the character taken as the
principle of division : first, it must be the same for all the
members — in other words, one principle — otherwise cross-
division and therefore confusion results ; secondly, it must
be a literal character, that is, not based on figure or fancy,
and essential, that is, not put on arbitrarily without regard to
the object's nature.

Examples. — i. Of mixed principles of division. If we should divide
literature into prose, verse, history, fiction, and religious literature, the
first two divisions would be on the principle of expression, the third and
fourth on the principle of kind of material, and the fifth on the principle
of aim or sentiment. But fiction may also be verse, and must be either
verse or prose, and any of these kinds may be religious ; — in fact, the
cross-divisions are so numerous that the whole list is really no division of
the subject at all.

1 See above, p. 481.

EXPOSITION. 571

2. Of fanciful or arbitrary principles. The following divisions are per-
haps true enough on other grounds, but they suffer from the fact that they
seem to be based on a mere analogy or fancy : —

" For civil history, it is of three kinds ; not unfitly to be compared with
the three kinds of pictures or images. For of pictures or images, we see
some are unfinished, some are perfect, and some are defaced. So of histo-
ries we may find three kinds, memorials, perfect histories, and antiquities;
for memorials are history unfinished, or the first or rough drafts of history;
and antiquities are history defaced, or some remnants of history which
have casually escaped the shipwreck of time." 1

If, instead of this analogy, he had avowed the principle of state
of material, his division would have had the authenticity of logical
classification.

" The knowledge of man is as the waters, some descending from above,
and some springing from beneath ; the one informed by the light of nature,
the other inspired by divine revelation. The light of nature consisteth in
the notions of the mind and the reports of the senses : for as for knowledge
which man receiveth by teaching, it is cumulative and not original ; as in
a water that besides his own springhead is fed with other springs and
streams. So then, according to these two differing illuminations or origi-
nals, knowledge is first of all divided into divinity and philosophy." 2

In this last sentence the logical principle, the principle of origin, is
brought out; but the analogy of waters, while giving imaginative zest to
the division, obscures its logical soundness.

2. The members of the division. By these are meant the
several parts or distinctions which add together to make up
the whole. Of these it is requisite : first, that no one member
cover the whole field of division, — there must be more than
one member, otherwise there is no division at all ; secondly,
that all the members together cover the whole field, no more
and no less ; thirdly, that each member exclude from its par-
ticular field each and every other.

Note. — If, for example, a classification of geometrical figures should
contain plane figures, parallelograms, rectangles, and polygons, the mem-
bers would not be mutually exclusive, for plane figures would include all
the others, and parallelograms would include also rectangles. Nor would

1 Bacon, Advancement of Learning, Book ii, p. 90.

2 lb., p. 105.

572 THE LITERARY TYPES.

the members taken together equal the whole, because solid figures are no
included under the dividing members at all. In fact, the first division o
all, which should be into plane and solid, is neglected, and the member;
given are really .^divisions of plane figures.

A sense of the need of exclusion between dividing members is recog
nized in the commonest thinking. For example, the old colloquia'.
description of something nondescript or anomalous as " neither fish noi
flesh nor good red herring " derives its point from the fact that the first
member includes also the third.

3. The completeness of the division. The requisite that
the dividing members taken together shall equal the divided
whole gives rise to the chief difficulty in logical division, the
difficulty, namely, of making sure that all the coordinate dis-
tinctions of the case are mentioned. Any distinction left
out might, if supplied, invalidate the whole process ; hence
the necessity of covering the whole field.

The simplest guarantee of completeness in division is what
is called bifurcate classification, wherein each superior class
is divided into two inferior classes distinguished by the
possession or non-possession of the quality taken as basis.
While in some cases this manner of division is barren, even
absurd, it is especially useful in preparing a question for
indirect argument ! ; useful also in determining the relative
rank of a quality, whether immediate or mediate, — whether
a main division or a subdivision.2

Examples. — Thus, by this method angles would be classified as
follows : —

1. Right Angles.

Acute (less than right).

2. (Not right) Oblique Angles ,

v & ' 4 ( Obtuse (more than right).

1 See below, p. 623.

2 " It would be a great mistake to regard this arrangement as in any way a pecu-
liar or special method ; it is not only a natural and important one, but it is the inevi-
table and only system which is logically perfect, according to the fundamental
laws of thought." — Jevons, Principles of Science, Vol. ii, p. 371. Another name
for this manner of division is dichotomy. In ancient Greek logic the illustration of
it, as it was carried out to successive subdivisions, was called the Tree of Porphyry.
See Hyslop, Elements of Logic, p. 97.

EXPOSITION. 573

Here evidently the whole field is covered. So also Lord Bacon's classi-
fication of natural history, though given by him in fhree divisions, reduces
itself to the bifurcate division with subdivision : —

Nature in course — creatures
Nature not in course

< Perverted — marvels.

( Improved — arts.

For literary purposes, however, the taking of a larger
number of divisions has the advantage of obviating the
necessity of so minute subdivision ; while in many cases
such a range or circuit of thinking may be devised as to
contain a guarantee of completeness. The divisions worked
for, in any case, in order to cover the field, must be few and
fundamental, not numerous or minute.

Examples. — Lord Bacon's triplicate division of philosophy contains
by its very expression a sense of completeness : " In philosophy the con-
templations of man do either penetrate unto God, or are circumferred to
nature, or are reflected or reverted upon himself. Out of which several
inquiries there do arise three knowledges : divine philosophy, natural phi-
losophy, and human philosophy or humanity. For all things are marked
and stamped with this triple character, of the power of God, the difference
of nature, and the use of man."1

Similarly, the division reduced to bifurcate above, by its simple passing
over one stage of subdivision leaves the triple division as complete in
sense as the other : " History of nature is of three sorts : of nature in
course ; of nature erring or varying ; and of nature altered or wrought ;
that is, history of creatures, history of marvels, and history of arts." 2

2. Literary Division, or Partition. — The partition of a sub-
ject for literary treatment, while the same in essential method
as expository division, differs in its object, which is not so
much exhaustive classification as convenience and pointed-
ness. It seeks, that is, so to display the articulation of an
idea as to help the reader's memory and realizing power in
retaining it.

On this aspect of division, two remarks are important.

1 Bacon, Advancement of Learning, Book ii, p. 105.

2 lb., p. 86.

574 THE LITERARY TYPES.

i. While the partition may or may not, on its chosen scale,
exhaust the aspects of the subject, it is made as an enumera-
tion of topics for present treatment, and lays no claim to
completeness. Its divisions, too, do not necessarily relate
to the subject as species to genus; they are conceived merely
as a way of sweeping broadly over the field of discussion.
Fulness of treatment requires that no obvious department of
the subject, and especially none whose presence would modify
or invalidate the rest, be left out. At the same time, its
distinctness from the stricter exposition should be apparent ;
it should show for what it is, a partition. This fact is gen-
erally made clear by an expressed or implied disavowal of
complete classification, amounting to a limitation of the
writer's claim.

2. The divisions thus made have not the necessity of
severity which strict exposition has ; they may be expressed
in epigram, or figure, or be determined by analogy, as the
pointedness of the thought may gain thereby. At the same
time, this kind of division will no more bear to be fanciful
or arbitrary than will logical division ; it still aims to be
logically sound, though the severity of the process is covered
up ; and these literary forms of expression are intended as
aids in displaying and enforcing a natural current of thought.

Examples. — I. Of the subject, the plan of which is given on p. 449,
above, Burke thus announces the partition, also justifying the pains he
has taken in thus dividing it: —

" My second condition, necessary to justify me in touching the char-
ter, is, whether the Company's abuse of their trust, with regard to this
great object, be an abuse of great atrocity. I shall beg your permission
to consider their conduct in two lights: first, the political, and then the
commercial. Their political conduct (for distinctness) I divide again into
two heads : the external, in which I mean to comprehend their conduct in
their federal capacity, as it relates to powers and states independent, or
that not long since were such ; the other internal, namely, their conduct to
the countries either immediately subject to the Company, or to those who,

EXPOSITION. 575

under the apparent government of native sovereigns, are in a state much
lower, and much more miserable, than common subjection.

M The attention, sir, which I wish to preserve to method will not be
considered as unnecessary or affected. Nothing else can help me to selec-
tion, out of the infinite mass of materials which have passed under my eye,
or can keep my mind steady to the great leading points I have in view."1

2. We can rightly estimate now the divisions from Bacon which are
criticised on p. 571, above. As determining a principle of division, the
analogies there given are fallacious; we cannot lean weight upon them;
but as mere illustration and mnemonic to aid in the literary expression of
the division they have their value.

II. EXPOSITION OF THE SYMBOLS OF THINGS.

Distinction must be made between actual objects on the
one side and the terms that name them on the other. These
latter are not things, but only the symbols of things, serving
as the means of bringing the things themselves into con-
sciousness and comprehension. As such they are subject to
the infirmities of every vehicle of expression. Language is a
potent working-tool, but not perfect ; and its imperfection is
most felt, naturally, where it has the finest and exactest work
to do. On the expositor's side it may not name all that he
has in mind ; on the reader's side it may fail to convey a just
or full conception. Accordingly, an essential branch of expo-
sition— half of it, we may say — has to be taken up with
these more or less inadequate symbols of things ; their mean-
ing has to be fixed, sources of error have to be eliminated,
simplifying and elucidative terms have to be adduced.

To some extent this kind of exposition points back over
the road that we have come : it takes up again the use of
words, syntax, emphasis, connotation, — the various ways of
conveying and implying thought. But this it does in inverse
approach ; not now in the attitude of creativeness, but rather
of criticism and interpretation. The work that other minds

1 Burke, Speech on The East India Bill, Select British Eloquence, p. 316,

576 THE LITERARY TYPES.

have done, or that our mind is in act to do, has by sucl
exposition to be revised and tested.

Exegesis of Terms. — For exposition applied to words, as
they are in themselves and as they are deepened or colored
by association with other words, we adopt here the name
exegesis, from the Greek e^yeo/xat, "to lead out" — a word
quite appropriate to our purpose, though heretofore its use
has been confined mostly to interpretation of Scripture.

Observe, such exegesis is applied not to the bare and sim-
ple word, but to the word as a term, that is, as representing a
notion already in mind and struggling, as it were, for recog-
nition. How the word recognizes and portrays the notion,
what traits of the notion it brings out, and wherein, if at all,
it falls short of its idea, — such inquiry as this, an inquiry
always comparing symbol and thing, is the work of exegesis.

Lines of Inquiry. — A great many lines of inquiry are open
to exegesis ; for the purpose of literary exposition we may
name merely the three most natural and important.

i. Interrogating the source and derivation of the word in
question. Almost all English words that express generalized
ideas come ultimately from some language not English ; and
further, in their source they are more concrete, often express-
ing visible objects or acts. To trace their derivation and
history is the most direct way to build up the notion itself
from its foundation.

2. Examining the synonymy of the word, that is, bring-
ing into comparison words which, while they present various
degrees of likeness, must of necessity express various shades
of difference. This is a valuable way to disengage the notion
from obscuring or extraneous ideas and fix its exact limits
and range.

EXPOSITION. 577

3. Reducing the ambiguities that inhere in the word.
Few abstract words are absolutely single in meaning; and
the words that express the most used notions are hardest to
fix to one application or to a sharp application. The sense
in which a word is used has often to be singled out with
much care and pains. Only so can a closely discriminated
notion be transferred in its integrity from one mind to
another.

Examples. — The examples here adduced are purposely taken from
works wherein such exegesis is employed not for itself but in a literary
way, as a casual enrichment of the thought.

1. Of the use of derivation. On p. 51, above, there are examples of
this kind of exegesis in literature. The following is an additional example,
from a lecture on Literature : " Here, then, in the first place, I observe,
Gentlemen, that Literature, from the derivation of the word, implies
writing, not speaking; this, however, arises from the circumstance of the
copiousness, variety, and public circulation of the matters of which it con-
sists. What is spoken cannot outrun the range of the speaker's voice,
and perishes in the uttering. When words are in demand to express a
long course of thought, when they have to be conveyed to the ends of the
earth, or perpetuated for the benefit of posterity, they must be written
down, that is, reduced to the shape of literature." 1

2. Of the use of parallel and synonymous terms. In the following, the
corresponding terms from other languages are made use of : " But what
do we mean by this fine word Culture, so much in vogue at present ?
What the Greeks naturally expressed by their Traidela, the Romans by
their humanitas, we less happily try to express by the more artificial word
Culture. The use of it in its present sense is, as far as I know, recent
in our language, forced upon us, I suppose, by the German talk about
' Bildung.' And the shifts we have been put to, to render that German
word, seem to show that the thing is with us something of an exotic, rather
than native to the soil. When applied to the human being, it means, I
suppose, the ' educing or drawing forth all that is potentially in a man,'
the training all the energies and capacities of his being to the highest pitch,
and directing them to their true ends." 2

3. Of reducing ambiguity in words. John Stuart Mill, one of the

1 Newman, Idea of a University, p. 273.
i Siiaiki', Culture and Religion, p. 18,

578 THE LITERARY TYPES.

clearest thinkers of our century, was fond of examining terms for thei
ambiguities of meaning, and selecting out a meaning for his purpose
The following is an example : " The word ' civilization,' like many othe
terms of the philosophy of human nature, is a word .of double meaning
It sometimes stands for human improvement in general, and sometime:
for certain kinds of improvement in particular. [After two paragraphs o
explication, he says :] We shall on the present occasion use the word ' civi
lization ' only in the restricted sense; not that in which it is synonymous
with improvement, but that in which it is the direct converse or contrarj
of rudeness or barbarism." 1

■<

Explication of Propositions. — An object of exposition appears
either as a notion or as the relation between notions ; hence
its form is either a term which names the notion, or a propo-
sition which makes an assertion regarding it. For the inter-
pretation of this latter form, and in general for exposition
applied to any finished expression, we may here adopt the
term explication.

This kind of exposition may of course be applied, by way
of simplification, to one's own statements, but oftenest it deals
with the thought of others. In this latter case it takes upon
itself all the obligations implied in dealing fairly. Not only
sound criticism but common justice depends on this. The
interpretation of another's thought is too momentous a thing
to be trusted, as it too prevailingly is, to vague and general
impressions. The thought must be treated with all the respect
due to a man's personal possessions. According to the need
therefor, it must be — as the derivation of the word explica-
tion suggests — unfolded, unwoven ; and in this idea is con-
noted not only the general process but the patience, the
candor, the honesty requisite to disengage the author's real
thought from the close-plaited, idiosyncratic, not seldom
complex web of his expression. The obvious need of this

1 Mill, Dissertations and Discussions, Vol. i, pp. 186, 187.

EXPOSITION. 579

judicial fairness makes the work of criticism, which is only
explication writ large, second in importance only to the
highest creative achievement.

We need therefore to recount the most important phases
of this work of explication.

The Beginnings in Literary Analysis. — Such explication
begins with the most elementary processes of composition ;
it does not disdain or neglect any smallest turn, phrase, or
intimation that throws light on the working of the author's
mind. The object is thus to follow from their source the
steps by which his thought gets itself into form, and thus be
in position to give it a fair verdict. This requires that such
aspects of his assertion as the following be passed in analytic
review : —

i. What is actually and literally said. Every sentence has
a certain net amount of definite predication, determinable
by laws of grammar ; also its attendant elements, which
strengthen, or limit, or shade the assertion. To ascertain
these is obviously the critic's first duty.

2. What is conveyed indirectly. Many things are packed
in by implication, that is, by pregnant wording and turns of
expression ; many things, too, are conveyed by connotation,
that is, by some illustrative idea or emotional turn added to
the literal. No thorough critic can ignore these.

3. What relative weight and rank are to be attributed
to various parts of the thought. Some words or clauses are
emphasized, others passed over lightly ; some are of princi-
pal import, others subordinate ; some merely repetitionary
and illustrative, others striking out the new advances of
thought. No critical outfit is complete which does not
accurately judge such distinctions as these.

All this is to the criticism of uttered thought precisely
analogous to a historian's ascertainment of facts1; it is, in
1 See above, p. 544.

580 THE LITERARY TYPES.

truth, a systematic evolvement of the facts of expression,
made in the same spirit that dictates honesty to facts every-
where, and calling for the same patience, the same stern
accuracy, the same refusal to pass any fact by as irksome or
immaterial.

Note. — This stage of criticism is regarded as the dryest and most
repulsive, and a grammarian, with his care for minutiae, as the dullest of
all created beings. As a consequence, most of the criticism of the day is
content to be off-hand, flippant, impressionistic; it amounts to little, and
lasts hardly at all. But the fact is, the close grammatical research is dry
only in one who is a grammarian and nothing else; the ideal is to make the
explicatory stage merely the basis, on which, as on a hidden substructure,
the fairer edifice of interpretation may be solidly erected.

The Higher Criticism. — By this term, which, it may be
noted, applies equally to all literary interpretation,1 we may
designate, in general, the answer to the question how the
work under investigation came to be what it is. In this
research are included questions relating to the author him-
self,— his powers, his limitations, his prevailing bent, his
bias ; and questions relating to the environment and circum-
stances of his utterance.

Grammatical explication, indispensable though it is, can
carry the critic only a little way. It still leaves out the
sympathetic human element by which under a man's words
is discerned a man's soul. Nothing short of this latter insight
can satisfy the vital requisite of interpretation.

By the rapport thus established with the writer's mind the
understanding of his words is carried inward from the letter
to the spirit ; we make allowance for their motive and senti-
ment, their basis of impulse, mood, character ; we submit
ourselves for the time to the current of his convictions, or
his poetic imagination, or to the influence of his point of

1 The term Higher Criticism is nowadays understood so predominantly of Biblical
scholarship that the clause above has to be added ; the term cannot be monopolized
thus by one department of study.

EXPOSITION. 581

view. By the study of environment and circumstances the
understanding of his words is carried onward from the spirit
of the man to the spirit of his age or his neighborhood or his
party or his occupation ; we are enabled thus to realize what
is called their atmosphere, and what gives them hold on
universal truth.

Examples. — How environment and personality are used in criticism
may be hinted at in the following quotations, which, however, are too brief
to give any idea of the range and masterliness of the book from which
they are taken.

Of the time of the romantic movement this is said : " The age was an
age of expansion. The human spirit was reaching out delicately or stren-
uously in many ways for new forms of experience. It was emancipating
itself once and for all from the hard and fast restrictions of prosaic eight-
eenth-century life. ... In short, the whole nature of man was once more
vitalized into free, confident play after the long period of paralyzing over-
intellectualism which had so curiously prevailed since the days of Descartes
and Hobbes. And as the result of this mysticism and passion and auda-
cious dreaming, the human spirit won many new aptitudes and new powers
and acquired a new range of sensitiveness to a myriad hitherto unperceived
shades of beauty and feeling." — Of the environment of Charlotte Bronte's
work it is said: " It was not for nothing that she lived for so many years a
lonely, introspective life between an overcrowded graveyard and the deso-
late expanses of the Yorkshire moors. The world, as she conceived of
it, was not the world of conventional intrigue in drawing-rooms or pump-
rooms or gossiping country-side towns; and the news of the world that
she sent out through her novels was news that had come to her not by
hearsay or tittle-tattle, or authenticated by painstaking watchfulness in
the midst of tea-drinkers and scandal-mongers, but news that could bear
the comment of the sweep of the moors by day and of the host of stars by
night." *

The Personal Equation. — This term, imported from astro-
nomical science, is here adopted to designate the allowance
that must be made, in interpretation, for tendency to error on
the part of the interpreter, — a tendency due to bias or one-
sidedness, or lack of thorough induction of facts. It is largely

1 GATES, Studies anil Appreciations, pp. 24, 131.

582 THE LITERARY TYPES.

by the control or elimination of this tendency that we estimate
the trustworthiness of a critic.

Note. — In astronomical observations made by different persons, allow-
ance has to be made for the fact that some have a quicker eye than others,
and consequently can note the instant of a star's transit more exactly; and
this allowance for discrepancies between different observers is called the
personal equation. For a fuller account, see the Century Dictionary, s.v.
equation, in the list of phrases at the end.

The matter is brought up here for the sake of what the
critic owes to himself. In his study of another's thought he
must keep watch of a tendency, which perhaps no one can
wholly gainsay in himself, to read into the original one's own
ideas, or to give the original a coloring not accurately its own,
by prejudices and preconceptions. Some imaginative critics
are wholly untrustworthy on this account. And no interpre-
ter can be unerring without some determinate culture designed
to efface his own conceptions in the presence of his author's.
The conscientious critic will carefully interrogate himself, and
labor to reduce the personal error to a minimum. The ideal
for him is to be a perfectly transparent, unrefracting medium
for the transmission of the original author's ideas ; and in
making an interpretation not infrequently he may have to
work over his transcript many times, with utmost solicitude,
in order to make sure of retaining no distorting elements due
to his own personality.

Note. — The true critic, like the poet, is born, not made ; but the ideal
of balance and sanity of judgment, of cautious temperance in statement
without falling below the greatness of the thing interpreted, is an ideal
that it is most valuable for every one to seek ; the whole potency of sound
and permanent literature resides in it.

III.

Forms of Reproduction. — The interpretation applied to
words, propositions, and larger ranges of expressed thought
is not always given to readers in the form of explication or

EXPOSITION. 583

comment. There is a severity and hardness in commentary
writing which detracts from its interest as literature ; besides,
not always does the occasion of interpretation call for the
minuteness implied in verbal or grammatical exegesis. In
the majority of cases, perhaps, the interpretation is conveyed
in some parallel form of expression, which serves to reproduce
the original in a manner more clear or better adapted to the
present purpose. These forms, as belonging to some of the
most commonly employed processes of literature, call here
for notice.

Abstract. — Abstract, or precis-writing, is the name given
to that process of discourse wherein the thought of a literary
work is reproduced in narrower compass. Employed mainly
to report public discourse, or to put others' thought in shape
for answer or comment, it is the kind of exposition which is
concerned not with elaborated graces of style but with the
core and gist of the thought. Its value depends upon its
maker's ability to get below minor considerations to the
essential point of the argument represented.

Two working processes, in the main, are resorted to in
making abstract : selection and condensation. By selection
are eliminated those thoughts whose office is merely to
amplify, — that is, which merely repeat, or particularize, or
illustrate ; and thus the nucleus thoughts are left to stand out
by themselves. This process is most naturally employed in
cases where the original is developed by propositions and
proofs, or by comprehensive statements and details,1 as in
argumentation or exposition. By condensation the effort is
not so much to eliminate matter as to reduce the scale ;
which is done by packing elucidative thought into epithets,
pregnant words equivalent to clauses, and implicatory terms.2
This process is especially useful in cases wherein the thought

1 For methods of amplification, see above, pp. 465 sqq.

2 For aspects and means of condensation, see above, pp. 295 sqq.

584

THE LITERARY TYPES.

must be gathered not from nucleus propositions but from the
general bearing of the whole ; as in narration.

Both these processes are ordinarily employed together ;
though according to the nature of the thought one will nat-
urally take predominance of the other. The general aim in
abstract is an exposition distinct, clear-cut, concise, without
repetition and without ornament.

Examples. — The following quotations will illustrate how abstract is
employed in literature.

i. Selective abstract. It was a custom of Carlyle's to give at the end
of his books a brief abstract of his chapters by way of summary. The
method, which was mainly selective, gave only the nucleus of each para-
graph. The following will exhibit the general proportion of original and
abstract : —

"Of Rousseau and* his Heroism I cannot say so Rousseau a
much. He is not what I call a strong man. A mor- morbid, excitable,
bid, excitable, spasmodic man ; at best, intense rather spasmodic man
than strong. He had not 'the talent of Silence,' an intense rather than
invaluable talent ; which few Frenchmen, or indeed strong. Had not
men of any sort in these times, excel in ! The suffer- the invaluable ' tal-
ing man ought really 'to consume his own smoke'; ent of Silence.'
there is no good in emitting smoke till you have made
it into Jire, — which, in the metaphorical sense too, all
smoke is capable of becoming ! Rousseau has not
depth or width, not calm force for difficulty; the first
characteristic of true greatness. A fundamental mis-
take to call vehemence and rigidity strength ! A man
is not strong who takes convulsion-fits; though six
men cannot hold him then. He that can walk under
the heaviest weight without staggering, he is the strong
man. We need for ever, especially in these loud-
shrieking days, to remind ourselves of that. A man
who cannot hold his peace, till the time come for speak-
ing and acting, is no right man." 1

Here, by way of condensation, the single word invaluable stands for the
amplifying part of the paragraph.

1 Carlyle, Heroes a?id Hero-Worship, pp. 184, 250.

EXPOSITION. 58$

2. Condensive abstract. In the following a whole narrative, the gist of
which is to be used in a speech, is condensed into a very brief space: —

" You remember Gulliver's adventures. First he is shipwrecked in a
country of little men; and he is a Colossus among them. He strides over
the walls of their capital : he stands higher than the cupola of their great
temple : he tugs after him a royal fleet : he stretches his legs ; and a royal
army, with drums beating and colors flying, marches through the gigantic
arch: he devours a whole granary for breakfast, eats a herd of cattle for
dinner, and washes down his meal with all the hogsheads of a cellar. In
his next voyage he is among men sixty feet high. He who, in Lilliput,
used to take people up in his hand in order that he might be able to hear
them, is himself taken up in the hands and held to the ears of his masters.
It is all that he can do to defend himself with his hanger against the rats
and mice. The court ladies amuse themselves with seeing him fight wasps
and frogs: the monkey runs off with him to the chimney-top: the dwarf
drops him into the cream jug and leaves him to swim for his life. Now,
was Gulliver a tall or a short man ? Why, in his own house at Rotherhithe
he was thought a man of the ordinary stature. Take him to Lilliput ; and
he is Quinbus Flestrin, the Man Mountain. Take him to Brobdingnag,
and he is Grildrig, the little Manikin." *

Paraphrase. — Paraphrase is the reproduction of an author's
thought, both main and subordinate, in other language. When
it is also a change from the poetic form to prose, it is called
Metaphrase.

Paraphrase is often disparaged, as if its necessary effect
must be to dilute the thought and flatten the style. But
it must be remembered that paraphrase is not employed in
the interest of style. If style is wanted, it already exists in
the original. Paraphrase has one clear object, — namely, to
explain. It is essentially a means of interpretation. And for
this the occasion, even in works of high rank as style, is
often very real. The material may be too condensed for easy
comprehension ; its abstruseness may call for simplifying treat-
ment ; its poetic form may cover up its kernel of thought in
imagery ; it may be an old work and expressed in a diction
too archaic for present usage. To such characteristics as

1 Macaulay, The Literature of Britain, Speeches, Vol. ii, p. 35.

586 THE LITERARY TYPES.

■

these paraphrase naturally addresses itself. Its prime object,
then, is to bring out the latent sense or significance of a
passage, by stating in new terms points that otherwise would
be missed or misunderstood.

To the proper making of paraphrase two requisites are
essential. First, all changes should be made for the sake of
greater clearness. For this purpose phrasal epithets may
have to be slightly expanded, tropes and implications literal-
ized, allusions resolved ; though none of these should be
touched unless the substituted form may be made thereby
to focus more definitely on the idea for which the change
is made. Secondly, the writer should guard against weaken-
ing the thought or lowering the tone and spirit of the original.
To this end no paraphrase should be made in cold blood or
as a perfunctory task. It should be undertaken with the same
interest that inspired the original ; thinking the same thought
and lending the aid of a new contemplation.

Examples of Paraphrase and Metaphrase. — i. The utility of
paraphrase as a means of drawing out in more available terms the mean-
ing of a passage may be seen in a single sentence : " ' I was alive without
the law once,' says Paul; the natural play of all the forces and desires in
me went on smoothly enough so long as I did not attempt to introduce
order and regulation among them." 1 Here the paraphrase is devoted to
literalizing the metaphor " I was alive," and to putting into apprehensible
modern terms the Hebrew concept law.

2. The following metaphrase is made in order to clarify the thought
which the original contains about memory in another world.

" We ranging down this lower track,

The path we came by, thorn and flower,
Is shadow'd by the growing hour,
Lest life should fail in looking back.

" So be it : there no shade can last

In that deep dawn behind the tomb,
But clear from marge to marge shall bloom
The eternal landscape of the past ;

1 Arnold, St. Paul and Protestantism, p. 41.

The gradual dimming of
memory here is a necessity
in the formation of charac-
ter;

but there, where character is
perfected, memory takes in
the whole life perfectly and
at once.

EXPOSITION.

587

" A lifelong tract of time reveal'd ;

The fruitful hours of still increase ;
Days order'd in a wealthy peace,
And those five years its richest field.

" O Love, thy province were not large,
A bounded field, nor stretching far ;
Look also, Love, a brooding star,
A rosy warmth from marge to marge."

The lifetime which Arthur
now remembers may perhaps
show those five years of friend-
ship as its richest period,

lending a starlike radiance to
all the rest.1

Here no attempt is made to paraphrase what falls outside the objective
purpose, as, for instance, "The fruitful hours of still increase"; our con-
cern is only with the subject proposed.

Translation. — In translation the writer's task is to repro-
duce the thought in exactly equivalent expression, neither
expanded nor abridged, in another language.

The reproduction of style, in translation, is something which
at its best can be only approximately, not perfectly, accom-
plished. The substance can be transferred from language to
language ; the flavor, the haunting quality, of the original, all
that comes from the delicate rhythms and correspondences
of sound, remains untranslatable.2

Note. — The great monument of the ages in translation, the Author-
ized Version of the English Bible, is indeed a masterpiece of English style,
not inferior perhaps to the original ; this, partly because in this case the
English language was able to enrich itself from Hebrew idiom and make
the result prevail, partly because the original lent itself unusually well to
English idiom. In another instance wherein the translation has the charm
of an original work, Fitzgerald's Omar Khayyam, this feat has been
accomplished less by literal translation than by masterly paraphrase ;
besides, it is suspected that of the two the translator was an incomparably
finer poet, who could contribute a charm that the original lacked.

Our concern here, however, is not with the flavors of
translated style, but with translation as a form of exposi-
tion. The translator must of necessity be an interpreter;

1 Metaphrase of Tennyson's In Mcmoriam (xlvi) by Gonung (Tennyson's In
Memoriam: a Study, p. 133).
2 See footnote, p. 589, below.

588 THE LITERARY TYPES.

he cannot be a colorless medium of expression, — at least, in
so far as he is, he leaves the result colorless. Every problem
of the force and tone of words, of the bearing of particles, of
the comparative effects of order between the two languages
is a pure problem of choosing an exactly interpretative equiva-
lent of the original. An interpreter the translator must be
at every turn ; his literary ideal is to produce a work which,
through his perfect assimilation of two languages, shall have
the same effect on its newer readers that the original had on
its day and public.

Three requisites, in the main, are necessary to translation.
First, of course, to choose exact and literal equivalents for
all that can be literally transferred. This applies to all the
denotative elements of language : concrete and everyday
words, matter-of-fact description, recounting of plain events.
Secondly, to reproduce in some equivalent form the spirit and
feeling of the original ; a task increasingly difficult according
to the original writer's individuality and the prevalence of the
emotional or imaginative element in the production. This
requisite applies to all that is conveyed by connotation,
whether in implied idea or in animus of word and figure ;
also to the irregularities of speech, roughness, ellipses, and
the like, so far as an intended impression is made by them.
It is lack of skill in these fine powers of language that pro-
duces the prevailing flat effect of which we are conscious in
ordinary translation.1 Thirdly, and growing out of this last
requisite, to translate the idioms of one language not literally

1 " The two constituent elements of every thought thus expressed are the idea
and the emotion. Both must be transferred, the one neither enlarged nor dimin-
ished, the other neither strengthened nor weakened. They are addressed to two
departments of the soul, the one to the intellect as something to be known, the
other to the affections as something to be, felt. They are logically separable, though
indivisible in fact. The idea can never be clearly given without the emotion ;
the emotion can never ba felt in its spiritual heartiness without accuracy in the
accompanying idea/' — Tayler Lewis, On the Emotional Element in Hebrew
Translation , Methodist Quarterly Review, 1862, p. 85.

EXPOSITION. 589

but into what is correspondingly idiomatic of the other. Not
always can this be done, for different languages do not often
have parallel idioms ; but when a just impression of the racy
native flavor of the original can be conveyed the translator
achieves his highest triumph in the mastery of his art.1

1 The following passage, though long, will abundantly justify insertion for the
light it throws on an important aspact of this subject, — the untranslatable : —

" Several times in these pages I have felt called upon to protest against the
adequacy of all translation of poetry. In its happiest efforts, translation is but
approximation ; and its efforts are not often happy. A translation may be good as
translation, but it cannot be an adequate reproduction of the original. It may be a
good poem ; it may be a good imitation of another poem ; it may be better than the
original ; but it cannot be an adequate reproduction ; it cannot be the same thing in
another language, producing the same effect on the mind. And the cause lies deep
in the nature of poetry. ' Melody,' as Beethoven said to Bettina, ' gives a sensuous
existence to poetry ; for does not the meaning of a poem become embodied in
melody ? ' The meanings of a poem and the meanings of the individual words may
be reproduced ; but in a poem meaning and form are as indissoluble as soul and
body ; and the form cannot be reproduced. The effect of poetry is a compound of
music and suggestion ; this music and this suggestion are intermingled in words, to
alter which is to alter the effect. For words in poetry are not, as in prose, simple
representatives of objects and ideas: they are parts of an organic whole — they are
tones in the harmony ; substitute other parts, and the result is a monstrosity, as if an
arm were substituted for a wing ; substitute other tones or semitones, and you produce
a discord. Words have their music and their shades of meaning too delicate for
accurate reproduction in any other form ; the suggestiveness of one word cannot be
conveyed by another. Now all translation is of necessity a substitution of one
word for another : the substitute may express the meaning, but it cannot accurately
reproduce the music, nor those precise shades of suggestiveness on which the delicacy
and beauty of the original depend.

" Words are not only symbols of objects, but centres of associations ; and their
suggestiveness depends partly on their sound. Thus there is not the slightest differ-
ence in the meaning expressed when I say

The dews of night began to fall,
or

The nightly dews commenced to fall.

Meaning and metre are the same ; but one is poetry, the other prose. Wordsworth
paints a landscape in this line :

The river wanders at its own sweet will.
Let us translate it into other words :

The river runneth free from all restraint.
We preserve the meaning, but where is the landscape ? Or we may turn it thus :

Tin- river (lows, now lure, now there, at will, —

590 THE LITERARY TYPES.

Note. — The difficulties of translation are still greater, not to say insu
perable, in the translation of poetry, which cannot well produce an effeci
like the original without a corresponding metrical form, and yet which
cannot be at once metrical and literal.

which is a very close translation, much closer than any usually found in a foreign
language, where indeed it would in all probability assume some such form as this :

The river self-impelled pursues its course.

In these examples we have what is seldom found in translations, accuracy of meaning
expressed in similar metre ; yet the music and the poetry are gone ; because the
music and the poetry are organically dependent on certain peculiar arrangements of
sound and suggestion. Walter Scott speaks of the verse of a ballad by Mickle
which haunted his boyhood; it is this:

The dews of summer night did fall ;

The moon, sweet regent of the sky,
Silvered the walls of Cumnor Hall,

And many an oak that grew thereby.

This verse we will rearrange as a translator would rearrange it :

The nightly dews commenced to fall;

The moon, whose empire is the sky,
Shone on the sides of Cumnor Hall,

And all the oaks that stood thereby.

Here is a verse which certainly would never have haunted any one ; and yet upon
what apparently slight variations the difference of effect depends ! The meaning,
metre, rhymes, and most of the words, are the same ; yet the difference in the result
is infinite. Let us translate it a little more freely :

Sweetly did fall the dews of night ;

The moon, of heaven the lovely queen,
On Cumnor Hall shone silver bright,

And glanced the oaks' broad boughs between.

I appeal to the reader's experience whether this is not a translation which in anot
language would pass for excellent ; and nevertheless it is not more like the original
than a wax rose is like a garden rose.

" To conclude these illustrations, I will give one which may serve to bring into
relief the havoc made by translators who adopt a different metre from that of the
original. Wordsworth begins his famous Ode :

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,

To me did seem

Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore ;

Turn wheresoe'er I may,

By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no mor§.

EXPOSITION. 591

A good example of recent translation that for racy flavor and grace
reads "like an original," is Catherine A. Janvier's translation of Felix
Gras.'s The Reds of the Midi, passages from which are quoted above,
pp. 17 and 495.

III. EXPOSITION IN LITERATURE.

As description and narration cover broadly the work of
arousing and satisfying the imagination, so exposition, which
in some form is their chief rival in literary prevalence, covers
broadly the work of informing the intellect. The great body
of literature that imparts knowledge, opinion, and counsel
may be included under the comprehensive term exposition.

It would serve no practical purpose to catalogue the
various forms and aspects that exposition may take in lit-
erature. Some of its more prominent phases only will here
be mentioned.

Criticism. — This represents the broad popular use of expo-
sition, as it is adapted to the interests and capacities of
readers in general. Its aim is to find the principles that

The translator, fully possessed with the sense of the passage, makes no mistakes,
but adopting another metre, we will suppose, paraphrases it thus :

A time there was when wood, and stream, and field,

The earth, and every common sight, did yield

To me a pure and heavenly delight,

Such as is seen in dream and vision bright.

That time is past ; no longer can I see

The things which charmed my youthful reverie.

" These are specimens of translating from English into English, and show what
effects are produced by a change of music and a change of suggestion. It is clear
that in a foreign language the music must incessantly be changed, and as no complex
words are precisely equivalent in two languages, the suggestions must also be dif-
ferent. Idioms are of course untranslatable. Felicities of expression are the idioms
of the poet ; but as on the one hand these felicities are essential to the poem, and on
the other hand untranslatable, the vanity of translation becomes apparent. I do not
say that a translator cannot produce a fine poem in imitation of an original poem;
but I utterly disbelieve in the possibility of his giving us a work which can be to us
what the original is to those who read it." — Lewks, Life of Goethe, pp. 466-468.

592 THE LITERARY TYPES.

should determine a work of literature or art or polity, and
pass judgment on such work, or on tendencies that influence
it, according as it fulfils or transgresses those principles.

Criticism, at bottom, is neither eulogy nor fault-finding ;
it is intelligent analysis of a work according to some standard
which critic and reader alike recognize as just. According as
it is of this character criticism is one of the great educational
agencies of an age.

Its Prevailing Ways of Publication. — In two ways, which
may be called the ephemeral and the permanent, criticism
meets the ordinary reader.

i. The first comprises the accounts of literary, artistic,
musical, and dramatic works which are prepared every day
for newspapers and magazines. Such criticisms, are a kind
of news announcement, their object being primarily to
describe, and then by some rapid strokes of judgment to
help the reader decide whether the work under review is
worthy of his further attention. While this work is ordinarily
only a rough and broad analysis, it should be deep and vital,
and made without fear or favor ; beyond this, that is, as
puffery or invective, it is not criticism ; it is merely business
or prejudice.

2. The second and higher kind is one of the younger
departments of literature, having come in and been developed
alongside the increased general culture of men. It appears
often in reviews, and then, according to its permanent interest
is republished in book form. It is the product of good
scholarship, imagination, sound and clear thinking, broad
comparative and penetrative study. The body of literature
thus produced belongs to the most valuable reading of an
age,

1 " At its best, this is one of the most exquisite of intellectual products, and only
a little below the creative work of the novelist or poet. It has come into existence
much later than the other forms of belles-lettres ; it is hardly two hundred years

EXPOSITION. 593

Note. — Macaulay and Carlyle did much of their earlier work in the
form of critical articles for reviews; which work was afterward reissued in
their collected writings. Some of the earlier critics of note are Francis
Jeffrey, William Hazlitt, Sydney Smith, Lord Brougham, and Thomas
De Quincey. Some of the men whose work has contributed to make criti-
cism a highly valued department of literature are Saint-Beuve, Matthew
Arnold, Walter Bagehot, Edward Dowden, Leslie Stephen, Richard Holt
Hutton ; in art criticism, John Ruskin, who has almost created the sphere
in which his artistic knowledge expresses itself, and Walter Pater.

Its Requisites. — The requisites "of good criticism, which
are really qualifications of the critic, may be summarized in
three leading traits.

i. Intelligence. The critic must have a large and propor-
tioned knowledge not only of what he criticises, but of its
whole sphere of ideas and technicalities ; this because the
critique itself must judge the work under review by both
intrinsic and comparative standards.

2. Sympathy. The critic must have the ability to enter,
without disturbing prepossessions, into the thought and feel-
ing of others, so as to see through their eyes, and judge from
their point of view ; this because the critique, even though it
deals with an erroneous or detested work, must show some
insight as to how it reached its position.

3. Individuality. The critic must with all his sympathy
have a fixed standard of his own, which, while it does not
preclude fair judgment, gives all his utterances conviction and
consistency ; this because the critique itself should be as vital
and personal as the work it criticises.1

old. Yet it takes every day a greater prominence, and it becomes more and more
desirable to insist on its importance and to ensure its welfare." — Edmund Gosse
in The New Revietv, Vol. iv, p. 409.

1 For the processes involved in criticism, see above, pp. 578-582. See also
Wilkinson, A Free Lance in the Field of Life and Letters, pp. 108-m,

594 THE LITERARY TYPES.

II.

Forms of Expository Work. — The work of exposition ir
literature takes two principal forms, the treatise and the essay.

The Treatise. — This, which generally takes the compass
of a volume or more, aims to present its subject in all parts,
and with a thorough and finished treatment. This leads gen-
erally to an exhaustive setting-forth not only of the results of
thought, but of all the processes by which those results are
obtained. The treatise, then, is the great means of getting
the deepest investigation of the age, in all questions scientific,
philosophical, political, so before the minds of men that it
may be preserved and further promoted.

In such work the thought or theory is first, and literary
embellishment, if added, is incidental and secondary. To
literature in the narrower sense, therefore, the treatise belongs
only indirectly, and according as the writer has or has not a
trained literary method ; and at its best the literary virtues it
displays are clearness of statement and lucidity of ordering, —
the fundamental qualities that subserve practical use.

Note. — The various text-books in science and all departments of
learning are familiar representatives of the treatise. The part that treat-
ises play in the progress of investigation may be judged from such massive
and standard works as Darwin's Origin of Species, Herbert Spencer's philo-
sophical works, Bacon's Advancement of Learning and Novum Orgauum,
Newton's Principia, Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, Hobbes's Leviathan,
Butler's Analogy, Locke's Essay concerning Human Understanding, and
many others.

The Essay. — Of all literary forms the most opportune and
practical, on the whole, is the essay ; and this for two reasons:
it is the most convenient for the prevailing custom of periodi-
cal publication ; and it is the form best adapted to the use of
those who write only occasionally and not as a profession. In
general esteem it stands next to the novel ; while often it may
attain a literary grace and elegance denied to the novel.

EXPOSITION. 595

The modest name originally given to this form of composi-
tion— essay, trial or attempt — still retains something of its
significance in both types of essay presently to be distin-
guished. The significance relates especially to what is
promised in the paper : not an exhaustive treatment, but
suggestive, giving rather results than processes, and expressed
in a style adapted to popular apprehension. The office of the
essay, as John Morley defines it, is "merely to open ques-
tions, to indicate points, to suggest cases, to sketch outlines."
If in any case an essay does more than this, it does what any
one has the right to do, namely, more than it promises.

The modern facility of publication in periodical form and
the tendency to exploit all kinds of knowledge and research
in this popular way have developed the essay in a new direc-
tion, so that now it exists in two distinct types.

i. The prevailing modern type, found in reviews, maga-
zines, and volumes of miscellaneous writings, may be called
the didactic. It is virtually a short treatise. It aims at
careful and ordered working-up of a subject, centres about
a definite proposition to be maintained by exposition and
reasoning, and addresses itself prevailingly to the intellect.
In such a work the interest is directed to the subject-matter,
and the writer's own personality is kept in the background.

Note. — Various names, more or less non-committal, are given to essays
of this type ; of which perhaps the most popular nowadays is the simple
name paper. Articles, reviews, monographs, appreciations, studies are
other designations for the same general thing. The names of men who
have achieved distinction in this kind of writing have been given in the
note on p. 590, above.

2. The original type of essay, which still survives in some
of the most exquisite literary work, may be called the personal.
In it the^ writer is as it were conversing with his reader ; he
freely reveals, and ordinarily in familiar language, his own
fancies and feelings, whims, and idiosyncrasies. Studied plan

596 THE LITERARY TYPES.

and formal processes of exposition and argument are avoided
the essay imitates rather the freedom and seeming wayward
ness of private conversation. At the same time, by its sug-
gestiveness and packed connotation of style, this kind of essay
often contributes more to solid thinking than it promises ; this
is its privilege.

Examples. — The most noted representative of this personal type of
essay is Montaigne, who is regarded as the father of the essay. In modern
literature the type, introduced by the genial essays of Addison and Steele
in the Spectator, is carried on by Charles Lamb in his Essays of Elia,
Thackeray in his Roundabout Papers, Christopher North (Professor
Wilson) in his Nodes Ambrosianw, and Robert Louis Stevenson in his
Virginibus Puerisque and Across the Plains.

A modification of the original type, in the direction of more condensed
and severe utterance, while still without the formalism of a treatise, is seen
in the essays of Bacon and Emerson, and in the Imaginary Conversations
of Landor.

CHAPTER XVII.
ARGUMENTATION.

In our study of literary types hitherto, what we have
contemplated has been various ways of exhibiting material :
concrete portrayal in description ; time-succession in nar-
ration ; generalized interpretation in exposition. But there
are some objects sought to which all these processes, while
important or even essential, are only preliminary. The real
truth of the case, as distinguished from its meaning, may be
still to seek ; or there may be weighty consequences for the
reader to believe or act upon. To the mere exhibiting of
thought, therefore, must be added some process of establishing
or enforcing it as truth, as something on which conviction and
conduct may be based. Hence the need of argumentation.

Definition of Argumentation. — Argumentation is the ordering
ofjthe facts and principles relating to a subject in question,
with the view to inducing belief as to its truth or error.

The analysis of this definition will bring to light some
fundamental traits of argumentation as a literary type.

i. The subject, observe, is in question ; that is, by the very
fact that reasoning is employed to establish it, the subject is
conceded to have two sides, each of which has validity enough
at least to exist, and to one of which committal is sought.
The outcome of this fact is that the truth of the matter is con-
ceived as a proposition, a rigorously formulated statement,which
the course of argument aims to make clear and convincing.

2. In the ordering of facts and principles is implied a
scheme of reasoning, of greater or less extent ; and because

597

598 THE LITERARY TYPES.

critical

this is concerned with a truth, it must at every step be
as well as constructive, — must guard its processes from fallacy
and error. This makes argumentation an affair at once of
attack and defense ; and negative forms of argument have
importance side by side with positive.

3. The belief, which it is the reasoner's aim to induce,
may be of various depths, according to the issue involved.
With the mere conviction of the intellect argumentation
proper is concerned ; when, however, it comes to stirring
the feelings and moving the will, on some vital question of
conduct, character, or policy, a more impassioned and per-
sonal style of argumentation is employed, called persuasion
or appeal ; its finished outcome is seen in oratory.

In so capital a matter as inducing belief in truth, a belief
which on occasion may pass into conviction and action, it is
not individual arguments alone that can be relied on for the
result. These have their part ; but so, equally, has the body
of argumentation, the whole current of the plea as a system.
On these two subjects, then, rests the first division of the
present chapter.

SECTION FIRST.
Argumentation in its Type Forms.

It has been said in connection with the definition that a
thoughtfully adduced argument is at once constructive and
critical ; while it maintains one side it must, to be valid, be
aware of the other side, and make itself good in defense as
well as in attack. This gives importance to two types of argu-
mentation, the constructive and the destructive ; the direct
proof of truth, and the disproof of error.

ARG UMENTA TION. 599

I. ARGUMENTATION CONSTRUCTIVE.

By this is meant the proof of truth directly ; that is, setting
a conclusion plainly before the mind, to be verified or enforced,
and then adducing the facts and principles that go to sub-
stantiate it.

In devising an order in which to consider the various types
of argumentation constructive, we may best follow, perhaps,
the logical order in which knowledge is obtained. There are
"three principal ways, or stages. First of all there is the
direct observation and discovery of facts ; secondly, from the
accumulation of these facts there is the inference of other facts
or of general truths ; and finally, there is inference from gen-
eral truths or principles to other truths, general or particular.
These three ways of obtaining knowledge are the basis of
three types of argument, which, sometimes singly, but gen-
erally in mixture and combination, make up a course of
argumentation.

Direct Discovery of Facts. — In strictness the discovery of
facts by direct inquiry is rather a preliminary to argument
than argument itself ; but it is so necessary to inference, and
the spirit in which it is conducted is so truly at one with
the spirit of sound reasoning, that it cannot be left out of the
account.

Of the primal means of discovering facts, our own personal
observation, something has already been said.1 It is, however,
only a small proportion of the facts we must use, that we can
obtain in this way. We must depend, for the most part, on
what others report to us ; under which is included, of course,
what is obtained through books and written reports, as well
as what is obtained orally. The same means of testing and
appraising it, in principle, is applicable to all.
1 See above, pp. 397-402.

600 THE LITERARY TYPES.

Of the evidence thus obtained we discern two kinds. There
is first the affirmation of what the witness has observed, which
we name Testimony ; and secondly, there is the report of what
the observer, a specialist in some field of research or skill, can
bring as the result of trained judgment or opinion ; and this
we name Authority.

Testimony. — At first thought it would seem a very simple
matter to obtain the report of a witness as to what he has
seen and heard. There are involved in it, however, questions
of no little intricacy, which suggest themselves on one point
or another, and must be solved, before the real truth can be
evolved from a body of testimony.

Such questions range themselves into three lines or stages
of inquiry.

i. The first line of inquiry concerns itself with the witness.
His personal character, to begin with : is he by common repute
a man of honesty and veracity, whose word can be trusted ?
Then, his ability to testify : how accurately can he observe,
how truly can he remember, how clear and straight a report
can he make of what he has observed ? The answer to these
questions, it will be seen, reveals many degrees of value in the
results obtained. Finally, his relation to the thing testified :
what is there in his own predilections or prejudices, what is
there in the circumstances, to make his testimony more, or
less, trustworthy ? A reluctant testimony, or a testimony that
makes against the interests of the witness himself, is regarded
as especially likely to be true. Many centuries ago, the ideal
citizen was characterized as one "that sweareth to his own
hurt, and changeth not."

Illustrations. — The way in which witnesses' characters and circum-
stances are sifted in courts of law may be seen from the following : —

" These two witnesses, Mr. Coleman and N. P. Knapp, differ entirely.
There is no possibility of reconciling them. No charity can cover
both. One or the other has sworn falsely. If N. P. Knapp be believed,

ARGUMENTATION. 601

Mr. Coleman's testimony must be wholly disregarded. It is, then, a ques-
tion of credit, a question of belief between the two witnesses. As you
decide between these, so you will decide on all this part of the case.

" Who is Mr. Coleman ? He is an intelligent, accurate, and cautious
witness ; a gentleman of high and well-known character, and of unques-
tionable veracity; as a clergyman, highly respectable; as a man, of fair
name and fame. ... It is a misconstruction of Mr. Coleman's motives,
at once the most strange and the most uncharitable, a perversion of all
just views of his conduct and intentions the most unaccountable, to repre-
sent him as acting, on this occasion, in hostility to any one, or as desirous
of injuring or endangering any one. He has stated his own motives, and
his own conduct, in a manner to commend universal belief and universal
respect.

" The relation in which the other witness stands deserves your careful
consideration. He is a member of the family. He has the lives of two
brothers depending, as he may think, on the effect of his evidence ; depend-
ing on every word he speaks. I hope he has not another responsibility
resting upon him. . . . Compare the situation of these two witnesses. Do
you not see mighty motive enough on the one side, and want of all motive
on the other ? I would gladly find an apology for that witness, in his
agonized feelings, in his distressed situation ; in the agitation of that hour,
or of this. I would gladly impute it to error, or to want of recollection, to
confusion of mind, or disturbance of feeling. I would gladly impute to any
pardonable source that which cannot be reconciled to facts and to truth ; but,
even in a case calling for so much sympathy, justice must yet prevail, and
we must come to the conclusion, however reluctantly, which that demands
from us." 1

2. The second line of inquiry is concerned with the testi-
mony. Is it, to begin with, probable on the face of it, that is,
consistent with ordinary experience and observation ? Then,
how does it square with the body of facts already known in
the case ? Finally — a matter of much moment — is the testi-
mony consistent with itself ? that is, does the witness tell a
straightforward and homogeneous story, or does he contradict
himself ? and when he repeats statements, how does the repeat
compare with the original assertion ? It is for the purpose of

1 WEBSTER, The Murder of Captain Joseph White, Webster's Great Speeches,

p. 221.

602 THE LITERARY TYPES.

testing the witness's evidence for self-consistency that cross-
examination is instituted in the courts.

Some kinds of testimony are regarded as of special value.
Such are : undesigned testimony ; what the witness inadver-
tently lets out, without realizing its possible bearing on the
case ; negative testimony, or failure to mention a circumstance
so striking that he must have noticed it had it occurred ; and
hostile testimony, the honest concession of some fact that
makes against the witness's interests or sympathies.

Illustration. — The following shows the kind of scrutiny a testimony
is subjected to in cross-examination : —

" Attend to his cross-examination. He was sure he had seen Lord
George Gordon at Greenwood's room in January ; but when Mr. Kenyon,
who knew Lord George had never been there, advised him to recollect him-
self, he desired to consult his notes. First, he is positively sure, from his
memory, that he had seen him there : then he says, he cannot trust his
memory without referring to his papers. On looking at them, they contra-
dict him ; and he then confesses that he never saw Lord George Gordon
at Greenwood's room in January, when his note was taken, nor at any other
time. But why did he take notes ? He said it was because he foresaw
what would happen. How fortunate the Crown is, gentlemen, to have
such friends to collect evidence by anticipation ! When did he begin to
take notes? He said, on the 21st of February, which was the first time he
had been alarmed at what he had seen and heard, although, not a minute
before, he had been reading a note taken at Greenwood's room in January,
and had sworn that he had attended their meetings, from apprehensions of
consequences, as early as December."1

In a similar way statements of fact, as published in books, are subjected
to minute comparison, examination of dates and circumstances, and the
like, in order to settle the value and authenticity of their details by internal
evidence.

3. The third line of inquiry is concerned with the truth as
something to be evolved from a body of testimony. When
there is more than one witness to the same facts, and their

1 Erskine, Speech in Behalf of Lord George Gordon, Select British Eloquence,
p. 644.

ARG UMENTA TION: 603

statements cannot be reconciled with each other, resort must be
had to the characters and motives of witnesses, as already
illustrated. If the testimonies agree in all essential particu-
lars, the presumption of their substantial truth is strong. As
soon, however, as we get beyond essentials to minute and
secondary details, we must look for disagreement enough to
correspond with differences in observing power and point of
view. Too minute agreement weakens the testimony ; because
it raises the suspicion, or even certainty, of collusion between
witnesses.

Illustration. — Some years ago Professor Greenleaf, of the Harvard
Law School, treated the accounts of the Four Evangelists as if they were
evidence of facts to be examined according to the procedures in courts of
justice. The following are some of his remarks by way of summary : —

" The character of their narratives is like that of all other true witnesses,
containing, as Dr. Paley observes, substantial truth, under circumstantial
variety. There is enough of discrepancy to show that there could have been
no previous concert among them ; and at the same time such substantial
agreement as to show that they all were independent narrators of the same
great transaction, as the events actually occurred. . . . The discrep-
ancies between the narratives of the several evangelists, when carefully
examined, will not be found sufficient to invalidate their testimony. Many
seeming contradictions will prove, upon closer scrutiny, to be in substantial
agreement ; and it may be confidently asserted that there are none that will
not yield, under fair and just criticism. If these different accounts of the
same transactions were in strict verbal conformity with each other, the
argument against their credibility would be much stronger. All that is
asked for these witnesses is, that their testimony may be regarded as we
regard the testimony of men in the ordinary affairs of life." x

Authority. — It is not only for the facts that we cannot per-
sonally observe that we must, in our obtaining of knowledge,
depend on the word of others. For the interpretation of facts,
also, for the estimate to be made or the judgment passed on
facts, we must, in many a sphere of special knowledge, inter-
rogate those who have gained special insight therein. The

1 Greenleak, Testimony of the Four Evangelists, p. 28.

604 THE LITERARY TYPES.

aid thus furnished us we call authority. The man whc
embodies this authority is not strictly a witness ; rather he
takes the place, in this particular inquiry, of the judge or the j
jury, drawing a generalized conclusion concerning something
beyond their competency to judge.

Of this subject of authority, what we need here to note is,
the qualifications of the person, and the forms that authority
in statement may take.

i. Of the person, the inquiry centres not in his veracity, as
in a question of observed fact, but in the depth and range of
his judgment ; nor is his power to observe so much in question
as his wisdom to generalize from what he has observed. He
represents, in fact, the work of exposition ; he is a generalizer,
whose conclusion is a statement of educated opinion ; and
we, depending on him as an expositor, require of him the
expositor's qualifications of acumen, accuracy, soundness and
balance of judgment.1

1 For the traits evinced in a piece of exposition, see above, p. 556, 3. The dis-
tinction between the sphere of Testimony and that of Authority is thus given by
Archbishop Whately : 1" When the question is as to a Fact, it is plain we have to
look chiefly to the honesty of a witness, his accuracy, and his means of gaining infor-
mation. When the question is about a matter of Opinion, it is equally plain that
his ability to form a judgment is no less to be taken into account. But though this
is admitted by all, it is very common with inconsiderate persons to overlook, in prac-
tice, the distinction, and to mistake as to, what it is, that, in each case, is attested.
Facts, properly so called, are, we should remember, individuals ; though the term is
often extended to general statements ; especially when these are well established.
And again, the causes or other circumstances connected with some event or phenom-
enon, are often stated as a part of the very fact attested. If for instance, a person
relates his having found coal in a certain stratum ; or if he states, that in the East
Indies he saw a number of p3rsons who had been sleeping exposed to the moon's rays,
afflicted with certain symptoms, and that after taking a certain medicine they recov-
ered, — he is bearing testimony as to simple matters of fact : but if he declares that
the stratum in question constantly contains coal ; — or, that the patients in question
were so affected in consequence of the moon's rays, — that such is the general effect
of them in that climate, and that that medicine is a cure for such symptoms, it is
evident that his testimony — however worthy of credit — is borne to a different kind
of conclusion ; namely, not an individual, but a general, conclusion, and one which
must rest, not solely on the veracity, but also on the judgment, of the witness." —
Whately, Elements of Rhetoric, p. 81.

ARG OMENTA TION. 605

Example. — It is on the ground of such inquiries that Macaulay as an
historian is discredited, — not for his inability to gather and state facts, but
for a bias which invalidates his interpretation of facts, and thus makes him
uncertain as an authority. The ground of distrust is thus given : " Then
it is that we become aware that there were two Macaulays : Macaulay the
artist, with an exquisite gift for telling a story, filling his pages with little
vignettes it is impossible to forget, fixing these with an inimitable art upon
the surface of a narrative that did not need the ornament they gave it, so
strong and large and adequate was it; and Macaulay the Whig, subtly
turning narrative into argument, and making history the vindication of a
party. The mighty narrative is a great engine of proof. It is not told for
its own sake. It is evidence summed up in order to justify a judgment.
We detect the tone of the advocate, and though if we are just we must
deem him honest, we cannot deem him safe. The great story-teller is dis-
credited ; and, willingly or unwillingly, we reject the guide who takes it upon
himself to determine for us what we shall see. That, we feel sure, cannot be
true which makes of so complex a history so simple a thesis for the judg-
ment. There is art here ; but it is the art of special pleading, misleading
even to the pleader." 1

2. The forms in which authority meets us and is appealed
to concern every pursuit in life.

In the endeavor to determine questions of fact and right,
as in the courts, much dependence is placed on what is called
expert testimony ; that is, testimony not as to the actual facts
in the case but as to such interpretation of facts as could be
made only by a specialist in the sphere of knowledge to which
the facts belong. Thus physicians are interrogated as to
symptoms, the working of drugs, the infliction of wounds ;
chemists are employed to examine adulterations or compo-
sition of compounds; builders are asked about strength of
materials and value of workmanship ; specialists are set to
examining handwriting; and many other such things.

Every profession and pursuit, too, has its body of pro-
cedures, doctrines, or traditions, which constitute its author-
ity. Thus, in law, recourse is had -to recorded cases and

1 Wilson, Mere Literature and other Essays, p. 168.

606 THE LITERARY TYPES.

opinions of judges, a body of authority increasing enormous!
every year; in theology, to the Bible and to denominationa
standards ; in politics to the constitution of the nation am
to the acknowledged wisdom of statesmen ; in science, t(
the researches and experiments of men who have devotee
themselves to specialized study.

Illustration. — The following exemplifies appeal to authority on £
national and political subject: —

" This being admitted, can it be denied that the education of the commor
people is a most effectual means of securing our persons and our property :
Let Adam Smith answer that question for me. His authority, always high,
is, on this subject, entitled to peculiar respect, because he extremely dis-
liked busy, prying, interfering governments. He was for leaving literature
arts, sciences, to take care of themselves. He was not friendly to ecclesi-
astical establishments. He was of opinion that the State ought not to
meddle with the education of the rich. But he has expressly told us that
a distinction is to be made, particularly in a commercial and highly civilized
society, between the education of the rich and the education of the poor.
The education of the poor, he says, is a matter which deeply concerns the
commonwealth. Just as the magistrate ought to interfere for the purpose
of preventing the leprosy from spreading among the people, he ought to
interfere for the purpose of stopping the progress of the moral distempers
which are inseparable from ignorance. Nor can this duty be neglected
without danger to the public peace. If you leave the multitude uninstructed,
there is serious risk that religious animosities may produce the most dread-
ful disorders. The most dreadful disorders ! Those are Adam Smith's
own words; and prophetic words they were."1

II.

Inference from Particulars. — To discover facts, by obser-
vation, testimony, or authority, indispensable though it be to
knowledge, is only a beginning, and seldom is left as the sole
process. The facts thus discovered are to be put together,
and from them some inference is to be drawn, either of some

1 MACAULAY, Speech on Education, Speeches, and Poems, Vol. ii, p. 45.

A R G UMENTA TION. 607

other facts yet unknown, or of some larger truth to which all
the facts have relation, as particulars in evidence.

Such inference from particulars is called Induction. It is
the process of arguing from what is known to what is at the
beginning unknown or problematical ; or of establishing some
conclusion by accumulating and weighing all the particulars
that work together to make it probable.1

The Hypothesis. — The basis of every inductive argument is
an hypothesis ; by which we mean a provisional conclusion,
theory, or conjecture. It is adopted to explain the likeliest
ox prima facie indication of the particulars, and thereafter held
subject to confirmation, modification, or abandonment in
favor of another hypothesis, as further particulars come in.
An hypothesis, then, is an inductive conclusion not fully
verified.

Note. — Thus, in accounting for a death by violence, the most satis-
factory hypothesis, to begin with, may be that the deceased committed
suicide. Adopting this provisionally, then, and carefully scrutinizing all the
facts and indications known, the observer is finally either fully confirmed
in his theory, or compelled to adopt a new one to account for facts that
the suicide theory could not explain.

An hypothesis is something adopted not so much that it may
be believed as that it may be doubted until it is subjected to
every available test. The proper attitude of the inductive
reasoner, in other words, is caution and thoroughness ; his
gravest error, jumping at the conclusion before the evidence
is all in. The particulars, therefore, from which his induction
is made, are not to be regarded as proofs of the conclusion ;
they are merely indications, good as far as they go, and some
going farther than others, to show that such a conclusion is
on the whole probable. They are to be weighed, then, as well
as numbered ; for they may have all degrees of conclusiveness.

1 For the order of investigation in the plan, which is merely an inductive
process carried on informally, see above, pp. 446, 447.

608 THE LITERARY TYPES.

Some may be so slight and indirect as to have no real valu
alone, but only in connection with stronger ones ; others ma1
have so determinative a connection with the conclusion a:
almost to amount to proof. In any case it is safer to esti
mate indications low and crave more, than to overrate anc
leave gaps in the evidence.

Note. — Thus, the redness of the evening sky is a commonly acceptec
indication, but by no means a proof, that the weather will be fair to-morrow
the weight of the atmosphere, as shown by the barometer, is another inch
cation, but not a proof ; the two indications taken together make fail
weather probable, and more probable than one indication alone would do ;
still they do not prove fair weather. A large number of indications would
put the conjectured fact beyond reasonable doubt, and still more certain it
would be if in a long series of observations these phenomena were followed,
without exception, by fair weather. Thus in time this conjunction of facts
might come to be regarded as invariable, and even trusted as a general law ;
still, strictly speaking, it is only a probable conclusion, not absolute, and its
certainty depends on the completeness of the induction. The same may
be said of every inductive argument, and especially of every inquiry dealing
with the future.

Grades and Species of Inductive Argument. — The degree of
conclusiveness that an indication may have is measured
mainly by the closeness of its relation to the conclusion
sought ; and there are kinds of such relation which are
depended on not only for the truth in view, but for the gen-
eral use to which the argument is put. The following three
classes, or grades, beginning with the most intimate and con-
clusive, will serve to classify the various kinds of inductive
argument.

i. Particulars viewed as Cause or Effect. — Some indications
belong, as far as they go, to the class of causes, that is, they
tend to produce, as an effect, the conclusion we have in mind.
Others, viewed as effects, are pushed back in thought or com-
putation to the cause that must be postulated as their producer,
which latter may be taken as the conclusion sought. The

ARG UMENTA TION. 609

two directions of investigation, from cause to effect and from
effect to cause, are precisely the same in principle, and subject
to the same tests. In any inquiry involving a conclusion of
fact, this kind of relation is the first thing sought, and when
established constitutes, according to its weight, what is called
antecedent probability.

The kind of argument that takes a known cause and from
it infers a determinate effect is called a priori.

The kind of argument that takes a known effect and from
it infers the producing cause is called a posteriori.

Examples. — i. Of a priori argument. In seeking to locate the respon-
sibility for an act, e.g. a crime, one of the first things sought is a motive,
which, as far as it goes, is clearly to be regarded as a cause. The follow-
ing use of motive as an a priori argument will exemplify this : "Joseph
Knapp had a motive to desire the death of Mr. White, and that motive has
been shown. He was connected by marriage with the family of Mr. White.
His wife was the daughter of Mrs. Beckford, who was the only child of a
sister of the deceased. The deceased was more than eighty years old, and
had no children. His only heirs were nephews and nieces. He was sup-
posed to be possessed of a very large fortune, which would have descended,
by law, to his several nephews and nieces in equal shares ; or, if there was
a will, then according to the will. But as he had but two branches of
heirs, the children of his brother, Henry White, and of Mrs. Beckford, each
of these branches, according to the common idea, would have shared one
half of his property. This popular idea is not legally correct. But it is
common, and very probably was entertained by the parties. According to
this idea, Mrs. Beckford, on Mr. White's death without a will, would have
been entitled to one half of his ample fortune; and Joseph Knapp had
married one of her three children."1

2. Of a posteriori argument. The induction by which the planet Nep-
tune was discovered is a good example of tracing effects back to their cause.
The following outlines the story of it: "The motions of Uranus, the
outermost then-known planet, had been carefully watched since its dis-
covery by Sir W. Herschel, and an orbit was speedily assigned it. For
about fourteen years the planet kept to this path, and then began to gain
on its predicted place, continuing to do so for about twenty-seven years,

1 WBB8TER, The Mtirdcr of Captain Joseph White, Webster1 s Great Speeches,

p. 201.

610 THE LITERARY TYPES.

when it ceased to advance and soon began to fall behind, continuinj
steadily to do so. It was seen by Leverrier, a young French astronomer
and Adams, then a student at Cambridge, that these movements could b<
explained by the action of a planet exterior to Uranus, and they both inde
pendently tried to solve the problem thus presented, and indicate the dis
turbing planet's place. This problem . . . was treated differently by the
two investigators. Both assigned certain probable values to the distance
and periodic time of the unknown body, which made their work possible
Each wrought out his solution, and found the elements of the unknown
body's orbit. Adams sent word to Professor Challis of Cambridge, and
Leverrier later advised Dr. Galle of Berlin where to look for it. Dr. Galle
first saw it, on September 23, 1846, within a degree of Leverrier's calculated
place, and three degrees of Adams's." 1

Concerning any argument involving cause and effect, three
facts must be established, by way of test, before it can be
regarded as conclusive. It must be shown : —

That an actual cause exists ;

That it is sufficient to produce the effect contemplated ;

That opposing circumstances or probabilities are not
sufficient to hinder its working.

Note. — The motive ascribed in the quotation from Webster abo
while a proved cause, ought not to be regarded as sufficient in itself to
prove the prisoner's guilt ; other causes, or traits of character, or positive
circumstances, must be adduced to corroborate what at this stage is only a
starting-point of probability.

* The discovery of Neptune, described above, turned out to be, after all, an
accident ; the cause of the perturbations was inferred, and so accurately
that actual observation did the rest, but the effect might have been pro-
duced by some other cause. " This problem," says the author of the
article, " could be solved so as to indicate any one of an infinite number
of planets, each of which would produce the observed disturbance of
Uranus. ... It is true the planet was found to have a different orbit from
that assigned by the calculators. Their planets were in fact not identical,
nor were they the planet Neptune. But they must ever have credit for the
sagacity and ability with which, aiming at so indefinite a target, they so
nearly struck the centre."

1 Chambers' 's Cyc/o/cedia, s.v. Astronomy.

ARC UMENTA TION. 61 1

2. Particulars viewed as Concomitants. — Indications not con-
nected with the conclusion as cause or effect belong evidently
to a secondary rank ; they accompany the fact or event in
question, but do not produce it. Such indications taken singly
may be small and of little weight ; but taken together they
may so help and color each other as to create a high degree
of probability. For secondary and preliminary conclusions —
for which they are oftenest used — they are of high value : they
may so define the thing to be proved that the inquirer may
know just what primary evidence to look for.

Note. — The redness of the evening sky is no cause of fair weather; it
is merely a secondary indication, as is also the height of the barometer.
For a conclusive indication we must find that determining state of the
atmosphere which is the cause at once of fair weather and of the evening
redness.

Inference from such secondary data is technically called
the argument from sign ; the facts discovered being taken
as signs, so far as they go, of the fact or event in question.
The practical employment of such inference in the courts,
which is very extensive, is called circumstantial evidence ;
and is more relied upon, ordinarily, to prove the circumstances
of a case than to establish its main issue. In any use of it
this kind of inference is naturally concerned that the data
make up in number and cumulative power, as combined, fcr
what they lack separately in conclusiveness.

Examples. — I. Of argument from sign. In an argument constructed
to show what signs there are that Shakespeare was the author of a certain
sonnet prefatory of one of John Florio's books, entitled " Phaeton to his
Friend Florio," the use of words, the circle of expressions, the circle of
ideas, are minutely compared with those of Shakespeare's known works,
and a very plausible case made out ; which, however, the author of the
argument thus estimates: "Such an identification, of course, does not
admit of demonstrative proof: all that we can possibly provide in the
absence of authentic contemporary testimony that Shakespeare and Phaeton

612 THE LITERARY TYPES.

were the same, is a concurrence of presumptions, separately feeble

ally open to banter, but together affording as firm a ground for belief as

can be had in such matters." *

2. Of circumstantial evidence. In the case of the murder of Captain
Joseph White, already cited, circumstances are accumulated to prove an
accessory question, namely, that the murder was the result of a conspiracy,
a question which circumstantial evidence could be relied on to decide :
" Let me ask your attention, in the first place, to those appearances, on the
morning after the murder, which have a tendency to show that it was done
in pursuance of a preconcerted plan of operation. What are they ? A
man wTas found murdered in his bed. No stranger had done the deed, no
one unacquainted with the house had done it. It was apparent that some-
body within had opened, and that somebody without had entered. There
had obviously and certainly been concert and cooperation. The inmates
of the house were not alarmed when the murder wras perpetrated. The
assassin had entered without any riot or any violence. He had found
the way prepared before him. The house had been previously opened.
The window was unbarred from within, and its fastening unscrewed.
There was a lock on the door of the chamber in which Mr. White
slept, but the key was gone. It had been taken away and secreted.
The footsteps of the murderer were visible, out-doors, tending toward the
window. The plank by which he entered the window still remained. The
road he pursued had been thus prepared for him. The victim was slain,
and the murderer had escaped. Everything indicated that somebody
within had cooperated with somebody without. Everything proclaimed
that some of the inmates, or somebody having access to the house, had
had a hand in the murder. On the face of the circumstances, it was
apparent, therefore, that this was a premeditated, concerted murder ; th
there had been a conspiracy to commit it."2

3. Particulars used as Parallels. — A third class of inductive
data have no direct connection with the case at all, whether
of cause or of accompaniment ; they are merely circumstances
of some parallel state of things. Such indications cannot be
used, of course, to decide a question of fact. But for ques-
tions of principle, policy, conduct, — questions on which hang
some future procedure, — considerations of this kind are very

1 Minto, Characteristics of English Poets, Appendix B.

2 Webster, The Murder of Ca/tain Joseph White} Webster's Great Speeches,
p. 20Q.

ARG UMENTA TION. 613

extensively used, by way of example or analogy, and are the
ground of the most popular and pleasing styles of argument.

The argument from example, taking instances of what
has occurred at other times or in other places, infers from
them what is likely to occur again under similar conditions,
or inculcates some action modelled on them as a lesson. The
validity of this argument depends not only on the parallel
state of things but more truly on the parallel conditions, which
must be so evident as to remove the conclusion from the
reproach of being an accidental parallel, or coincidence. The
laws governing the events, in fact, should be no less clear
than the like events themselves.

The most cogent form of the argument from example, called
the argument a fortiori, reasons that if a certain thing is
true in a given case, much more will it be true in a supposed
case where the conditions are more favorable.

Examples. — i. Of the argument from example. The following familiar
passage from Patrick Henry illustrates not only the argument from example
but, in its outcome, the masterly transfer of its implication from a seeming
question of fact to a question of policy and conduct: " It was sometime in
the course of this tremendous fight, extending through the 29th and 30th
of May, that the incident occurred which has long been familiar among the
anecdotes of the Revolution, and which may be here recalled as a reminis-
cence not only of his own consummate mastery of the situation, but of a
most dramatic scene in an epoch-making debate. Reaching the climax of
a passage of fearful invective, on the injustice and the impolicy of the
Stamp Act, he said in tones of thrilling solemnity, • Caesar had his Brutus ;
Charles the First, his Cromwell ; and George the Third [' Treason,' shouted
the speaker. 'Treason,' 'treason,' rose from all sides of the room. The
orator paused in stately defiance till these rude exclamations were ended,
and then, rearing himself with a look and bearing of still prouder and
fiercer determination, he so closed the sentence as to baffle his accusers,
without in the least flinching from his own position,] — and George the
Third may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most
of it.'"i

1 Tyler, Patrick Henry (American Statesmen), p. 64. The "fight" referred
to is a debate that took place in the Virginia House of Burgesses, in 1765.

614 THE LITERARY TYPES.

2. Of the argument a fortiori. Many of the assertions of Scripture arc
put in this form of argument ; for example, " Wherefore, if God so clothi
the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven
shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith ?" 1 — The following
is the plea by which Burke advocates sympathy, on the part of England
with the Irish Roman Catholics: "I confess to you freely, that the suffer
ings and distresses of the people of America in this cruel war have at times
affected me more deeply than I can express. I felt every gazette of triumph
as a blow upon my heart, which has a hundred times sunk and fainted
within me at all the mischiefs brought upon those who bear the whole
brunt of war in the heart of their country. Yet the Americans are utter
strangers to me ; a nation among whom I am not sure that I have a single
acquaintance. Was I to suffer my mind to be so unaccountably warped;
was I to keep such iniquitous weights and measures of temper and of rea-
son, as to sympathize with those who are in open rebellion against an
authority which I respect, at war with a country which by every title ought
to be, and is most dear to me ; and yet to have no feeling at all for the
hardships and indignities suffered by men, who, by their very vicinity, are
bound up in a nearer relation to us; who contribute their share, and more
than their share, to the common prosperity ; who perform the common
offices of social life, and who obey the law, to the full as well as I do ? " 2
Here the argument is : If I could sympathize with the Americans, unknown,
distant, and in rebellion, much more should I sympathize with the Irish,
well-known, near, and loyal.

The argument from analogy, taking relations that exist
in one sphere of life, action, or nature, infers from them what
will be true of events in another sphere wherein relations are
similar. Its validity as an argument depends on the true
similarity of relations, which must be deep and real, not
merely striking or fanciful.

Example. — In the following the analogy between mind and body is
urged as an argument for cultivation of the intellect as mere discipline,
apart from the practical results : " You will see what I mean by the parallel
of bodily health. Health is a good in itself, though nothing came of
it, and is especially worth seeking and cherishing ; yet, after all, the bless-
ings which attend its presence are so great, while they are so close to it and

1 Matthew vi. 30.

2 Burke, Bristol Speech, Select British Eloquence, p. 304.

ARG UMENTA TWIST. 61 5

so redound back upon it and encircle it, that we never think of it except as
useful as well as good, and praise and prize it for what it does, as well as
for what it is, though at the same time we cannot point out any definite
and distinct work or production which it can be said to effect. And so as
regards intellectual culture, I am far from denying utility in this large sense
as the end of Education, when I lay it down, that the culture of the intellect
is a good in itself and its own end ; I do not exclude from the idea of intel-
lectual culture what it cannot but be, from the very nature of things ; I
only deny that we must be able to point out, before we have any right to
call it useful, some art, or business, or profession, or trade, or work, as
resulting from it, and as its real and complete end. The parallel is exact :
— As the body may be sacrificed to some manual or other toil, whether
moderate or oppressive, so may the intellect be devoted to some specific
profession ; and I do not call this the culture of the intellect. Again, as some
member or organ of the body may be inordinately used and developed, so
may memory, or imagination, or the reasoning faculty ; and this again is
not intellectual culture. On the other hand, as the body may be tended,
cherished, and exercised with a simple view to its general health, so may the
intellect also be generally exercised in order to its perfect state ; and this is
its cultivation." J

The value both of example and analogy is after all rather illus-
trative than argumentative ; they are in reality instruments of
exposition, employed to make the subject so clear, in all its
relations, that men can see the truth or error of it for them-
selves. The truths to which they apply, therefore, are not
doubtful truths but self-evidencing principles of life, which
need rather to be clarified than established by proof.

Of the two kinds of reasoning, example is likelier to have
real argumentative validity, because the parallel relations on
which it depends are more easily traced and sounded. Analogy,
resting as it does on similarities in different spheres, can hardly
be more than an illustration, because, even if seeming identity
of relation can be urged, the causes and laws of things are
so different that the likeness may be merely superficial or
accidental. As illustration, however, analogy has all the

1 Newman, Idea of a University, p. 164.

616 THE LITERARY TYPES.

elucidative value of a connoted idea, while also by its beauty
it gives rhetorical pleasure ; hence its great value in popular
demonstration.1

III.

Inference from Generals. — The starting-point of an inference
is not always an individual fact. Going deeper than the con-
crete thing or event, we can take some general principle, or uni-
versal truth — for our minds are so endowed and developed
that a world of such abstract truth is evident to us, — and
from it infer something further, either abstract or concrete.

Such inference from general truths is called Deduction. It
is the process, by reasoning, not so much of finding new truths
as of applying old truths to new cases, or of bringing facts into
line with established principles. This is done by means of
intermediate principles or judgments called premises (from
praemitto, "to send before"), which are simply preliminary
grounds or reasons for concluding that something else is
true. As to its principle, then, the deductive form of argu-
mentation may be defined as the proof of truth by premise
and conclusion.

Note. — Thus — to use again the example already cited — if we predict
that there will be fair weather to-morrow because the sky this evening is
red, we take the present fact of redness as our premise for predicting what
to-morrow's weather will be. A process of reasoning is involved, of which
this fact is one element.2

1 For Analogy in Exposition, see above, p. 567.

2 The use of this same fact on p. 608 as a particular from which to build an
induction shows that premises, that is, reasons, enter as truly into inductive argu-
ments as into deductive. In logical usage, however, we do not call such a fact a
premise so long as it is regarded as a mere indication, among others, to determine
an hypothesis. To be a premise a fact must be significant enough to be in itself a
sufficient proof of the conclusion. And this depends upon the validity of some other
premise. In the present case the prediction is made because the truth of a major
premise — to wit: whenever the evening sky is red fair weather ensues — is taken
for granted ; let this be true, and the conclusion must follow. But in induction it is
just this hidden premise, or at least the universality of it, that is doubted ; hence, as
a matter of scientific caution, more reasons for expecting fair weather are sought.

ARG UMENTA TZOAT. 61 7

The Syllogism. — The basis of deductive reasoning, which
indeed is more or less implicated as a norm in all processes
of argumentation, is the syllogism. This is merely a frame-
work made by putting together two premises, called major
and minor, and drawing a conclusion from them. The major
premise is a truth affirmed as universal, that is, as covering
all cases. The minor premise affirms something as a case
under the major. The conclusion draws the inference appar-
ent from the identification of the two premises.

Example. — The well-worn example will serve as well as any to display
the framework of the syllogism so that its parts may be examined : —

Major Premise: All men are mortal.

Minor Premise: Augustus is a man.

Conclusion : Therefore Augustus is mortal.
There are in logic many orders and forms of statement for the syllogism,
and many tests to be applied to keep it from various tendencies to fallacy ;
but for rhetorical argumentation this outline will suffice.

Such is the syllogism in its bald logical form, the inner
framework of every argument that is founded on a general
truth. To keep this framework in mind, therefore, in every
process of reasoning, to be clearly aware of the function and
validity of every element, whatever its position or manner of
statement, is the surest guarantee of a sound argument. This
kind of logical parsing is the more important, because in lit-
erature the syllogism seldom appears fully stated or undis-
guised ; its elements are obscured, even while they are made
rhetorically more effective, by the various amplifications and
embellishments of which literary expression is full.

Examples. — The mere position of the parts of a statement, though it
be a complete and valid syllogism, may operate for the moment to disguise
the character of it. Take, for instance, this : " Comets consist of matter,
for they obey the law of gravitation, and whatever obeys the law of gravi-
tation is matter." Here a moment's logical parsing reveals the fact that the
syllogism is completely inverted, the conclusion being first and the major
premise last.

618 THE LITERARY TYPES.

The following is a somewhat rare example of the syllogism fully stated
in literature, and even this disguises the conclusion by the figure interro-
gation, and by amplifying terms : " It is the fashion just now, as you very
well know, to erect so-called Universities, without making any provision in
them at all for Theological chairs. Institutions of this kind exist both
here [Ireland] and in England. Such a procedure, though defended by
writers of the generation just passed with much plausible argument and
not a little wit, seems to me an intellectual absurdity ; and my reason for
saying so runs, with whatever abruptness, into the form of a syllogism : —
A University, I should lay down, by its very name professes to teach uni-
versal knowledge : Theology is surely a branch of knowledge : how then
is it possible for it to profess all branches of knowledge, and yet to exclude
from the subjects of its teaching one which, to say the least, is as important
and as large as any of them ? I do not see that either premise of this
argument is open to exception."1

The ways in which the syllogism may be involved in lit-
erature, to secure both its argumentative power on the one
hand and its literary acceptability on the other, may be
examined under two heads : —

i. The Syllogism in Enthymeme. — This is the name given
to the syllogism when it is condensed, as it very generally is,
by the omission of one of its premises.

In almost any statement sufficiently certain to be put into
syllogistic form, one of the premises will be obvious enough
to be safely taken for granted. If such is the case, it would
be a literary disadvantage to express it, for it would have the
flat and commonplace effect of a truism. Either of the
premises, the major or the minor, may according to its
obviousness be omitted ; though in the majority of cases,
perhaps, it is the major that is dispensed with, — this because
universal truths are most unquestioned.

Example. — Thus, to illustrate from the syllogism given above: it is so
obviously true that all men are mortal that we may let it go without saying,
and assert that Augustus will die because he is a man, — thus omitting the
major premise. Or again, the fact that Augustus is a man is so evident

1 Newman, Idea of a University, p. 19.

ARC UMENTA TION. 619

a truism that we may say Augustus will die because all men are mortal, —
thus omitting the minor premise. In the historic attempt to deify Augustus,
the minor premise, that Augustus was a man, was virtually denied ; that is,
the attempt was made to treat him as if he were not a case under the
general rule, and therefore not mortal.

Literature is so full of arguments with one premise omitted
that the fully expressed syllogism, as we have seen, is the rare
exception. And yet all reasoning should be conducted with
such caution that the reasoner may be able to trace all his
involved premises, whether expressed or not ; otherwise an
honest reasoner is liable to take some fallacy for granted,
while a dishonest man may use the artful suppression to
mislead. This is where the importance of logical analysis,
or parsing, comes in.

How then may an enthymeme be recognized, in the ordi-
nary current of literature ? In general, we may answer when-
ever an assertion is made with the reason for it {because
so-and-so), or whenever an assertion is made with an inference
from it {therefore so-and-so), there is pretty sure to be involved a
syllogism in which one premise is assumed as unquestionable.

Examples. — i. The following exhibits how a syllogistic argument may
be involved in a statement with its reason : " I have always deprecated
universal suffrage, not so much on account of the confusion to which it
would lead, as because I think that we should in reality lose the very
object which we desire to obtain ; because I think it would, in its nature,
embarrass and prevent the deliberative voice of the country from being
heard. I do not think that you augment the deliberative body of the
people by counting all the heads ; but that, in truth, you confer on indi-
viduals, by this means, the power of drawing forth numbers, who, without
deliberation, would implicitly act upon their will." l

The syllogism involved in this argument may be expressed thus : —

Major Premise: Whatever enables demagogues to wield an undeliber-
ative mass of men as a power in the state to be regarded as a danger.

Minor Premise: Universal suffrage makes possible such ability.

Conclusion : Hence, universal suffrage is to be regarded as a danger.

1 Fox, Speech on Parliamentary Reform, Select British Eloquence, p. 525.

620 The literary types.

2. The following exhibits how a syllogism may be involved in a state-
ment with its inference : " Generosity is more tried by an equal than it is
by an inferior, for the same reason that it is so with humility — viz., that
you are in competition with your equals, and are not in competition with
your inferiors. We know that the great obstruction to generosity in our
nature is jealousy — at least with regard to such advantages as touch our
pride. It would be easy to be generous to the intellectual claims of other
people, to their merits, to their character, were there no element of jealousy
in ourselves. But compassion is relieved from this trial ; compassion can-
not be jealous ; its work is with one who lies at its feet, who deprecates
the slightest comparison. How generous then will a man be to the fallen ;
but let the man get on his legs again, and it will sometimes be hard to him
who has been so superabundantly generous even to be barely just. It is
thus that generosity to an equal is more difficult than generosity to an
inferior." x

The enthymeme here given (or one of them, for several are involved) is
something like this : Equals are liable to be jealous, and therefore it is hard
for them to be generous. Expressed in syllogism this would be : —

Major Premise: Where jealousy is prevalent generosity is difficult.

Minor Premise: Jealousy is prevalent between equals.

Conclusion : Hence generosity to equals is difficult.

2. The Syllogism in Enlargement. — By this we refer not
to the natural amplifications and graces that are employed
to make any discourse interesting, whether argumentative or
other, but to the ways in which syllogistic reasoning may be
followed up as argumentation. Two lines of enlargement
may be noted.

The most important reinforcement of the syllogism is the
careful testing and establishment of the premises. While on
the one hand a premise that is a truism ought to be omitted,
on the other no premise can be safely passed over whose
meaning or truth is open to question. No syllogism is more
conclusive than its weakest premise. Hence much of the
strength in lines of argument is laid out in subsidiary reason-
ing and exposition designed to prove or elucidate the various
premises on which all depends. The most practical rule that

1 Mozley, University Sermons, p. 194.

ARGUMENTA TION. 621

can be laid down is : Be careful of your premises ; be cautious
as to what you assume.

Examples. — The syllogism propounded by Cardinal Newman on p. 618,
above, has probably struck the reader as questionable on account of its
premises; we are not certain that his definition of a University is the true
one ; and not all are certain that Theology is to be regarded as a real
branch of knowledge. Cardinal Newman is himself aware of this, and his
object in laying down the syllogism is really not to use its conclusion but to
examine and maintain its premises.

The first premise, "A University, ... by its very name, professes to teach
universal knowledge," which provokes the question, Is this the true defini-
tion ? is enlarged by exposition. If we take the term in its popular sense,
as denoting a place where the whole circle of knowledge is taught, we have
abundant authority (from which he quotes Dr. Johnson and the historian
Mosheim) for taking this as the real definition of a university ; and if we
take it in a less prevalent but still occasional sense, as denoting merely a
place where invitation is given to students of every kind, it still comes to
the same thing, for " if certain branches of knowledge were excluded, those
students of course would be excluded also who desired to pursue them."

The second premise, "Theology is a branch of knowledge," is held to
require a more elaborate proof by further deductive reasoning. He thus
lays out the argument : " But this, of course, is to assume that Theology
is a science, and an important one : so I will throw my argument into a
more exact form. I say, then, that if a University be, from the nature of
the case, a place of instruction, where universal knowledge is professed,
and if in a certain University, so called, the subject of Religion is excluded,
one of two conclusions is inevitable, — either, on the one hand, that the
province of Religion is very barren of real knowledge, or, on the other
hand, that in such University one special and important branch of knowl-
edge is omitted. I say, the advocate of such an institution must say this,
or he must say that ; he must own, either that little or nothing is known
about the Supreme Being, or that his seat of learning calls itself what it is
not. This is the thesis which I lay down, and on which I shall insist as
the subject of this discourse." The discourse accordingly is taken up with
proving that theology is a science.

Another means of enlarging the syllogism, dealing with
successive conclusions, is called a chain of reasoning. It
consists in making one argument, either fully or in enthymeme,

622 THE LITERARY TYPES.

and taking its conclusion as the premise of a second
and the conclusion of this for a third, and so on through i
succession of steps to a final supreme conclusion. Such z
chain of reasoning, involving as it does the thorough confir
mation of every step, produces a peculiar effect of cogency
and soundness.

Example. — Macaulay thus constructs a chain of reasoning, which
indeed he does not hold to be valid, but it is as valid as the argument that
he is engaged by parity of reasoning in refuting : —

"The doctrine of reprobation, in the judgment of many very able men,
follows by syllogistic necessity from the doctrine of election.

Others conceive that the Antinomian heresy directly follows from the
doctrine of reprobation ;

and it is very generally thought that licentiousness and cruelty of
the worst description are likely to be the fruits, as they often have
been the fruits, of Antinomian opinions.
This chain of reasoning, we think, is as perfect in all its parts as that
which makes out a Papist to be necessarily a traitor." *

II. ARGUMENTATION DESTRUCTIVE.

By this is meant argumentation intended to dislodge the
reader or hearer from some false position ; argumentation
that tears down, whether for the purpose of building up the
truth anew, by some more valid reasoning, or with the
effect, by clearing the ground, of leaving the truth free to
assert itself. It has naturally further steps in view, being
in the nature of the case unfinished ; but this is an after
consideration.

For constructive and affirmative ends, no less than the con-
trary, it is important to keep the possibilities of this negative
argumentation in view. For an essential half of every argu-
mentative process is to guard itself from fallacy, to forestall
attack, to see that no step is taken inconsiderately ; this is

l Macauxay, On Hallam '/ Constitutional History, Essays, Vol. i, p. 443.

ARG UMENTA TION. 623

involved in the very caution which weighs premises and tests
every hypothesis. Every endeavor to establish a truth is as
truly critical as constructive.1

Argumentation destructive, and its forms, may be presented
under two general processes.

Analyzing by Alternative. — The various forms of argument
employed for negative ends have as a common preparation
the reduction of the issue to an alternative ; that is, to a
statement of the question in a limited number of aspects,
usually two, of which only one, if one, can be true. It is
essential, then, that these possible aspects be accurately
determined, and be all the aspects in which the question
may be presented. The finding of them is really exposition
by division, in which the bifurcate classification is oftenest
employed, as being the most obviously complete, but in which
also more than two dividing members may be taken, if they
are so related as clearly to cover the ground.2

Reductio ad Absurdum. — This argument, first stating an
alternative one member of which must be false, assumes that
the false one is true, and proceeds to exhibit the untenable
conclusion that will result. It establishes no direct truth,
therefore ; it merely clears away the error, leaving the truth,
on whatever other grounds, to stand for itself.

As compared with the constructive form of reasoning, the
reductio ad absurdum is likely to be fully as strong, sometimes
stronger, because it shows where, if anywhere, the truth must
be. On the other hand, the constructive argument is richer
in content because with the conclusion it exhibits all the
premises and consideration that go to establish it.

1 See above, p. 597, 2.

2 For completeness of division, see above, p. 572,

624 THE LITERARY TYPES.

Example. — The following, applied to the testimony of the Evangelists,
shows how this kind of argument appears in informal literary expression.
The alternative on which it is based is this : Either they wrote what they
knew to be true or what they knew to be false. Assuming that they were
consciously false witnesses, the following results would follow: —

" It [namely the supposition of falsehood] would also have been irrecon-
cilable with the fact that they were good men. But it is impossible to
read their writings, and not feel that we are conversing with men eminently
holy, and of tender consciences, with men acting under an abiding sense
of the presence and omniscience of God, and of their accountability to
him, living in his fear, and walking in his ways. Now, though, in a single
instance, a good man may fall, when under strong temptations, yet he is
not found persisting, for years, in deliberate falsehood, asserted with the
most solemn appeals to God, without the slightest temptation or motive,
and against all the opposing interests which reign in the human breast. If,
on the contrary, they are supposed to have been bad men, it is incredible
that such men should have chosen this form of imposture ; enjoining, as it
does, unfeigned repentance, the utter forsaking and abhorrence of all false-
hood and of every other sin, the practice of daily self-denial, self-abase-
ment and self-sacrifice, the crucifixion of the flesh with all its earthly
appetites and desires, indifference to the honors, and hearty contempt of
the vanities of the world ; and inculcating perfect purity of heart and life,
and intercourse of the soul with heaven. It is incredible, that bad men
should invent falsehoods, to promote the religion of the God of truth. The
supposition is suicidal. If they did believe in a future state of retribution,
a heaven and a hell hereafter, they took the most certain course, if false
witnesses, to secure the latter for their portion. And if, still being bad
men, they did not believe in future punishment, how came they to invent
falsehoods, the direct and certain tendency of which was to destroy all
their prospects of worldly honor and happiness, and to ensure their misery
in this life ? From these absurdities there is no escape, but in the perfect
conviction and admission that they were good men, testifying to that which
they had carefully observed and considered, and well knew to be true." 1

Dilemma. — When the issue is reduced to an alternative
both members of which are untenable, the argument is called
a dilemma, and the two untenable conclusions are called the
horns of the dilemma.

The dilemma is thus wholly negative ; so far as it goes it

^Greenleaf, Testimony of the Four Evangelists, p. 27.

ARGUMENTATION. 625

merely refutes, and leaves no room for positive argument.
The only recourse, in the face of it, is either to abandon the
position, or to show that the alternative was not correctly
taken.

Examples. — In the argument from Greenleaf just cited the part begin-
ning, " If they did believe in a future state of retribution," is a dilemma,
showing the incredible results that would follow if they were supposed to
have given such testimony as they did, whether as believers or as dis-
believers in the doctrine.

Burke's attack on the Acts of Grace prevalent in his time, which were
merely an arbitrary release of debtors from prison when the prison became
overcrowded, is a dilemma; its basis of alternative being, either the creditor
had a right to the body of his debtor or he had not : " If the creditor had
a right to those carcasses as a natural security for his property, I am sure
we have no right to deprive him of that security. But if the few pounds of
flesh wTere not necessary to his security, we had not a right to detain the
unfortunate debtor, without any benefit at all to the person who confined
him. Take it as you will, we commit injustice."1

The Method of Residues. — This name is given to that form
of argument which, first enumerating all the possible aspects
of the question, then proceeds to eliminate, one by one, until
only the one tenable aspect is left. Its principle is the
same as in the other forms of analysis by alternative, the only
difference being that its basal division is not bifurcate but
ternary or more.

For the successful employment of this method the aspects
should be limited in number and exhaustive of the idea. To
clear away too many false positions complicates the argu-
ment, and gives rise to a feeling of insecurity lest the true
state of the case should, after all, have been overlooked.

Example. — Burke employs a method of residues in proposing what to
do with the American colonies; and one point of interest in it is, that a
fourth possibility, which he is unwilling to include in the enumeration,
became the event, when the English rejected the one he proposed: —

" Sir, if I were capable of engaging you to an equal attention, I would

1 Burke, Bristol Speech, Select British Eloquence, p. 299.

626 THE LITERARY TYPES.

state, that, as far as I am capable of discerning, there are but three ways o.
proceeding relative to this stubborn Spirit, which prevails in your Colonies
and disturbs your Government. These are — To change that Spirit, as
inconvenient, by removing the Causes. To prosecute it as criminal. Or
to comply with it as necessary. I would not be guilty of an imperfeci
enumeration ; I can think of but these three. Another has indeed beer
started, that of giving up the Colonies ; but it met so slight a reception
that I do not think myself obliged to dwell a great while upon it. It is
nothing but a little sally of anger ; like the frowardness of peevish chil-
dren ; who, when they cannot get all they would have, are resolved to take
nothing." [The first two named of these are then examined in an argu-
ment of several pages and dismissed as impracticable ; whereupon he thus
summarizes :] " If then the removal of the causes of this Spirit of American
Liberty be, for the greater part, or rather entirely, impracticable ; if the
ideas of Criminal Process be inapplicable, or if applicable, are in the highest
degree inexpedient ; what way yet remains ? No way is open, but the third
and last — to comply with the American Spirit as necessary; or, if yo
please, to submit to it as a necessary Evil." *

II.

Exposure of Fallacies. — This, the name of a process, is
employed here for what is otherwise called refutation ; all
refutation being concerned, in one way or another, with
the detection and exposure of fallacies. It is making the
actual criticism that in proof constructive ought to have been
forestalled and guarded against.

A fallacy is any error by which reasoning is made incon-
clusive or invalid. It may lurk anywhere : in the fact alleged,
or in the use of terms, or in the course of reasoning ; and the
means employed to expose it may be expository or argumenta-
tive, — more prevailingly the former, because what is generally
needed is simply to interpret.

Two comprehensive processes are in use in exhibiting the
fallacies of an opponent's position or arguments ; the first
more ostensibly logical, the second more literary, more adapted
to popular apprehension.

1 Burke, Conciliation -with America, Select Works, Vol. i, pp. 187, 195.

ARG UMENTA TION. 627

i. By Detailed Analysis. — This is going back, as it were,
over the ground of the reasoning, examining every step until
the source of error is discovered. It is often a matter of
much intricacy, because in the literary form that the argument
takes, in a speech or paper, the underlying course of the
thought is generally so overlaid with repetition, illustration,
and digression, that the central movement cannot well be dis-
cerned. Out of all this the argument is to be extricated,
its line of reasoning simplified, its emphasis, proportion,
presuppositions made evident and plain.1

i. Of this analysis the first thing we may note is the means
employed to locate the fallacy, whatever it is.

First of all, the natural course is to examine the purport and
tendency of the opponent's plea. Often this is translatable
into plainer terms, which bring to light the tendency that
is its natural outcome, or the view of things that really under-
lies it ; and as soon as this is made clear no counter argument
is needed ; the very plea refutes itself.

A favorite way of following out a fallacious plea to its
logical results is by a chain of reasoning,2 whereby the exact
purport of each step may be made manifest.

Examples. — r. The following condenses into one epigrammatic sen-
tence the real significance of the opponent's plea: —

"He asserts, that retrospect is not wise; and the proper, the only
proper, subject of inquiry, is 'not how we got into this difficulty, but
how we are to get out of it.' In other ivords, we are, according to him, to
consult our invention, and to reject our experience. The mode of delibera-
tion he recommends is diametrically opposite to every rule of reason and
every principle of good sense established amongst mankind. For that
sense and that reason I have always understood absolutely to prescribe,
whenever we are involved in difficulties from the measures we have pur-
sued, that we should take a strict review of those measures, in order to
correct our errors, if they should be corrigible; or at least to avoid a dull

1 For the process of exposition necessary to this, see above, pp. 578-582.

2 See above, p. 621.

628 THE LITERARY TYPES.

uniformity in mischief, and the unpitied calamity of being repeatedly caught
in the same snare." 1

2. The following is the chain of reasoning by which Webster attacks the
position of his opponents on the interpretation of the Constitution : —

" Such, Sir, are the inevitable results of this doctrine. Beginning with
the original error, that the Constitution of the United States is nothing but
a compact between sovereign States ; asserting, in the next step, that each
State has a right to be its own sole judge of the extent of its own obliga-
tions, and consequently of the constitutionality of laws of Congress ; and,
in the next, that it may oppose whatever it sees fit to declare unconstitu-
tional, and that it decides for itself on the mode and measure of redress,
— the argument arrives at once at the conclusion, that what a State dis-
sents from, it may nullify ; what it opposes, it may oppose by force ; what
it decides for itself, it may execute by its own power; and that, in short, it
is itself supreme over the legislation of Congress, and supreme over the
decisions of the national judicature ; supreme over the constitution of the
country, supreme over the supreme law of the land." 2

The second step, if analysis is carried further, is to examine
the opponent's course of reasoning, with intent to see if, his
premises being admitted, the conclusion naturally or neces-
sarily follows. A fallacy in the construction of argument is
called a non sequitur.

Example. — In his refutation of the Nullification doctrine Webster thus
shows that the right of individual states to nullify does not follow from the
doctrine, even if held, that the constitution is only a compact between
states : —

" I have admitted, that, if the Constitution were to be considered as the
creature of the State governments, it might be modified, interpreted, or
construed according to their pleasure. But, even in that case, it would be
necessary that they should agree. One alone could not interpret it con-
clusively ; one alone could not construe it ; one alone could not modify it.
Yet the gentleman's doctrine is, that Carolina alone may construe and
interpret that compact which equally binds all, and gives equal rights to all.

" So, then, Sir, even supposing the Constitution to be a compact
between the States, the gentleman's doctrine, nevertheless, is not maintain-
able ; because, first, the general government is not a party to that compact,

1 Burke, American Taxation, Select Works, Vol. i, p. 96.

2 Webster Js Great Speeches, p. 282.

ARGUMENTATION. 629

but a government established by it, and vested by it with the powers of
trying and deciding doubtful questions ; and secondly, because, if the Con-
stitution be regarded as a compact, not one State only, but all the States,
are parties to that compact, and one can have no right to fix upon it her
own peculiar construction." 1

Thus far the premises have been assumed sound ; but a
third step, if the erroneous argument requires and- invites it,
is to attack the premises themselves. If these can be proved
invalid, of course the argument must fall.

Example. — Thus, Webster follows up the refutation just cited by
retracting the admission that he had made for the purpose of argument,
and showing that even that premise is untenable : —

" So much, Sir, for the argument, even if the premises of the gentleman
were granted, or could be proved. But, Sir, the gentleman has failed to
maintain his leading proposition. He has not shown, it cannot be shown,
that the Constitution is a compact between State governments. The Con-
stitution itself, in its very front, refutes that idea; it declares that it is
ordained and established by the people of the United States. So far from
saying that it is established by the governments of the several States, it
does not even say that it is established by the people of the several States ;
but it pronounces that it is established by the people of the United States,
in the aggregate. The gentleman says, it must mean no more than the
people of the several States. Doubtless, the people of the several States,
taken collectively, constitute the people of the United States ; but it is in
this, their collective capacity, it is as all the people of the United States,
that they establish the Constitution. So they declare; and words cannot
be plainer than the words used."2

2. The kind or extent of fallacy to be looked for, in analyz-
ing the premises or elements of the various forms of argument,
may here to some extent be noted.

In deductive argument, the major premise, which is oftenest
omitted as self-evident, is perhaps, through the ignoring of it,
the most prevalent seat of fallacy. Purporting to be a uni-
versal truth, it may be invalid by failing to cover all cases, or

1 Webster, Reply to Hayne, Webster's Great Speeches, p. 271.

2 See reference of last citation.

630 THE LITERARY TYPES.

the case in question j or it may be so sweeping as to prove too
much. — The minor premise, purporting to be a case under
the general truth assumed as major, may be refuted by show-
ing that it is not truly such a case.

Illustrations. — i. Of the universality of a major. Dr. Johnson's
famous retort to a man of dishonorable calling who, on being remonstrated
with, urged as if it were an incontrovertible truth, " But a man must
live ! " — " Sir, I do not see the necessity of it," — is really a denial of the
universality of the major premise, as may be seen by filling out the syllo-
gism : 'Whatever a man's calling, the world owes him a living; I am a
man with a calling ; therefore the world owes me a living.' Here the hurt-
fulness of the calling destroys the universality of the major.

2. Of a major that proves too much. In a refutation of Gladstone's
essay on Church and State Macaulay thus points out a major premise that
proves too much : " Mr. Gladstone's whole theory rests on this great
fundamental proposition, that the propagation of religious truth is one of
the principal ends of government, as government. If Mr. Gladstone has
not proved this proposition, his system vanishes at once." This is refuted
by showing that if true it is as true of every body of men organized for a
particular purpose^ — of a scientific society, for instance, or a mercantile
concern — as it is of a government. The succeeding comment points
an error common among reasoners: "The truth is, that Mr. Gladstone has
fallen into an error very common among men of less talents than his own.
It is not unusual for a person who is eager to prove a particular proposition
to assume a major of huge extent, which includes that particular proposi-
tion, without ever reflecting that it includes a great deal more. . . . He first
resolves on his conclusion. He then makes a major of most comprehen-
sive dimensions, and having satisfied himself that it contains his conclu-
sion, never troubles himself about what else it may contain : and as soon
as we examine it we find that it contains an infinite number of conclusions,
every one of which is a monstrous absurdity." x

3. Of a minor premise. Webster's refutation cited on p. 629 is really
a refutation of the minor premise, as we may see by reconstructing the
syllogism : A compact between equal parties is subject to the pleasure of
all or each, to interpret, construe, or modify; the Constitution is such a
compact between equal and sovereign States ; hence, the Constitution is
subject to the pleasure of the individual States, to interpret, construe, or
modify. On this minor premise, having conceded the major, he lays out

1 Macaulay, Essays, Vol. iv, pp. 122, 132.

ARG UMENTA TION. 63 1

his strength of refutation, by showing that it is established by the people,
not by the States as such ; and in another speech he maintains that it is
not, strictly speaking, a contract.

In an inductive argument, the inquiry of the refuter relates
in some form to the completeness of the induction : whether
the particulars adduced are weighty enough, or numerous
enough, to establish the hypothesis. — Is an alleged example
real, — that is, does it apply to the present case, and if so,
is it a type example or merely a coincidence ? An example
adduced to prove one side in a controversy may often be offset
by an equally cogent example on the other. It is for this
reason that facts are so often said to be fallacious ; you can-
not always use them as examples to establish general cases.
— An argument from analogy provokes this inquiry : is there
a cause or a relation so similar to the present case as to be
decisive, or is it merely an illustration, which might be offset
by counter analogies ? The answer to this question is gen-
erally easy, because analogy is not really argument.

Testimony and authority are refuted either by adducing
counter evidence, or by showing dishonesty, incompetency, or
inconsistency on the part of the witness. Cross-examination
in courts of justice is essentially an instrument of refutation.

Illustrations. — I. Many popular superstitions are merely circum-
stances too vague and inconclusive to form a real induction, yet they are so
used. For instance, seeing the new moon over the left shoulder was doubt-
less first noticed in connection with ill luck ; then several coincident occur-
rences of this kind gave rise to a general belief that ill luck was necessarily
portended.

2. Macaulay thus demolishes an argument from example : " What facts
does my honorable friend produce in support of his opinion ? One fact
only; and that a fact which has absolutely nothing to do with the question.
The effect of this Reform, he tells us, would be to make the House of
Commons all powerful. It was all powerful once before, in the beginning
of 1649. Then it cut off the head of the King, and abolished the I louse of
l'eers. Therefore, if it again has the supreme power, it will act in the same

632 THE LITERARY TYPES.

manner. Now, Sir, it was not the House of Commons that cut off the
head of Charles the First ; nor was the House of Commons then all powerful.
It had been greatly reduced in numbers by successive expulsions. It was
under the absolute dominion of the army. A majority of the House was
willing to take the terms offered by the King. The soldiers turned out the
majority; and the minority, not a sixth part of the whole House, passed
those votes of which my honorable friend speaks, votes of which the middle
classes disapproved then, and of which they disapprove still." 1

3. George Henry Lewes thus refutes an analogical argument of Dr. John-
son : " Dr. Johnson was guilty of a surprising fallacy in saying that a great
mathematician might also be a grea't poet : ' Sir, a man can walk east as far
as he can walk west.' True, but mathematics and poetry do not differ as
east and west ; and he would hardly assert that a man who could walk
twenty miles could therefore swim that distance." 2

2. By Parity of Reasoning. — Detailed analysis, dealing as
it does with premises, subtle distinctions, abstruse lines of
argumentation, while it may be good for thinkers conversant
with such things, is ill adapted to popular apprehension.
Hence many cases rise, especially in public debate, wherein
if a refutation is to effect its purpose, and reach the persons
who are to profit by it, it must be so pointed as to show its
drift at once ; its distinctions must be so broad that no one
can fail to see them ; and technicalities must as far as possible
be avoided.

The great means of popular refutation, therefore, is parity
of reasoning ; that is, constructing a parallel argument wherein
like premises are involved, and the same line of reasoning,
but applied to more familiar subjects and leading to mani-
festly untenable conclusions. In this way the reader or
hearer is not bewildered with unravelling fallacies ; he simply
sees the lameness of the argument refuted. Parity of reason-
ing takes especially the scheme of reductio ad absurdum,
dilemma, and chain of reasoning. Analogy, also, from its

1 Macaulay, Speeches, Vol. i, p. 32.

2 Lewes, Principles of Success in Literature, p. 59. The remark of Dr. John-
son's may be found in Boswell's Life offohnson, Vol. v, p. 38, Hill's edition.

ARGUMENTATION. 633

lucidity, is a favorite instrument of popular refutation ; the
power of analogy as an argument is much greater in negative
than in positive application.

Examples. — It will be noted that the examples of chain of reasoning
quoted from Macaulay and Webster on pp. 622 and 628, above, are both
employed as instruments of refutation.

In the following the plea for foreign idiom in English is refuted by an
analogy : " It has been maintained that the censure of foreign idiom as
un-English has something unreasonable about it, for if such idioms had
not been freely imported, our language could never have become the com-
prehensive instrument which it now is. The fact is unquestionable, but the
inference is weak. As reasonably might it be argued that because a grow-
ing boy could eat apples and nuts and raw turnips, and thrive upon such
fare, the same individual could digest crude victuals at every subsequent
stage of his life ! There are times and seasons in the economy of language
quite as truly as in the physiology of animal life. The English Language
has had its omnivorous period, or rather periods, in which it has taken in
foreign nutriment to the verge of satiety. We have already more variety of
phrase than we can well find employment for, and the demand of the present
time is rather that we should work up what we have than import more
raw material."1

SECTION SECOND.
Argumentation in Ordered System.

Corresponding to what in the other types has appeared as
description, narration, and exposition in literature, we here
consider argumentation as it is made into a body of argu-
ments, with the system, the balance, the literary distinction
necessary to make it duly effective of its purpose. Argumen-
tation in literature this may indeed be called ; it belongs,
however, for the most part to the literature of public speaking,
and is expressed in the order and diction of spoken discourse.2
When it appears in printed form, it is merely as a palpable

1 EARLB, English Prose, p. 304.

■ For Spoken Diction and its Characteristics, see above, pp. 1 18-126.

634 THE LITERARY TYPES.

imitation of speech or, more often, as a report or publicatioi
of what was originally delivered orally.

As a finished whole, this ordered body of arguments is, s<
to say, greater than the sum of its parts ; this because th(
parts in juxtaposition so color, reinforce, and augment each
other that each gathers power from the rest. The full effect
ing of this is an achievement of literary skill beyond the
reach of rules ; only a few suggestions, principally of the ends
to be attained, can be given.

I. DEBATE.

In this kind of public discourse the interest, centering
entirely in the subject-matter, — its terms, propositions, under-
lying grounds, — takes little account of hearers except as
thinking beings needing to see an intellectual object clearly
and fully. The trenchancy of oratory is present ; not, how-
ever, to marked degree, its graces or its emotional element.
The ordering is intellectual ; that is, all its parts are planned
not to entertain, or even to inspire, but to secure the assent
of the mind to a proposition.

By debate, then, we mean a body of arguments and expla-
nations designed to produce intellectual conviction regarding
some truth in question. It may take place between opponents,
with the various sides of the question maintained by cham-
pions, or it may be merely an individual discussion. In any
case, the debater's duty is rather to the truth he is handling
than to the hearer or the occasion; and though there is a zest
in achieving a victory, yet this is ill gained if gained by doubt-
ful means or at any expense to honest conviction. In other
words, as truth is worth more than victory, the procedures
and tactics of debate are to be determined by the demands of
truth first, and only secondarily by the temporary claims
of contest.

ARGUMENTA T/OAT. 635

Preparation of the Question. — All that may be said about
the determination of the theme1 in general literary work is
raised to its highest degree of importance in debate. The
preparation of the question is the determination of the theme
or working-idea ; only here the theme is to be cleared of all
vagueness and discursiveness, to be not an idea merely, but a
definitely worded, clear-cut proposition, in which the truth
evolved from the question at issue, as the debater sees it, is
reduced to an assertion. In formal discussions this statement
of the theme is put as a resolution ; which then, either posi-
tively or negatively, each speaker construes, explains, and
submits to argument.

After the statement of the question as resolved, much
depends on the construing of it, which is a work of expo-
sition. Two aspects or stages of this are to be noted.

i. By exposition the question is to be subjected to every
serviceable means of exegesis and explication. Whatever is
obscure is to be put into accurate and lucid language ; what-
ever is hard is to be simplified and defined ; whatever is of
subordinate importance is to be distinguished from the main
issue ; and thus, in a word, the case at issue is to be concen-
trated to a statement whereon, if possible, all the parties to
the discussion may agree.2

Note. — How important and serviceable the mere exhibiting of the case
may be, even to the extent sometimes of making argument superfluous, is
illustrated from Lincoln's manner of preparing a question described in the
note on p. 555, above.

2. By exposition the nature and extent of the question are
to be determined, as the case demands. Whether the issue is

1 For the theme in general and its character, see above, pp. 421 sqq.

9 For the applications of Exposition involved in this, see pp. 576 s</</., above.

636 THE LITERARY TYPES.

one of fact or of principle ; whether of right or of expediency
whether admitting of certain decision or only probable
whether of universal or of limited application ; — such ques
tions as these, questions to be answered by a kind of large
exposition, do much to determine on what lines the propo i
sition is to be argued, and what range of result is to b(
sought.

Illustration. — The following, on the legislative question of Copy
right, shows how such considerations as these affect the discussion.

" The first thing to be done, Sir, is to settle on what principles the
question is to be argued. Are we free to legislate for the public good, 01
are we not? Is this a question of expediency, or is it a question of right!
Many of those who have written and petitioned against the existing state
of things treat the question as one of right. The law of nature, according
to them, gives to every man a sacred and indefeasible property in his own
ideas, in the fruits of his own reason and imagination. The legislature has
indeed the power to take away this property, just as it has the power to
pass an act of attainder for cutting off an innocent man's head without a
trial. But, as such an act of attainder would be legal murder, so would an
act invading the right of an author to his copy be, according to these
gentlemen, legal robbery.

" Now, Sir, if this be so, let justice be done, cost what it may. I am not
prepared, like my honorable and learned friend, to agree to a compromise
between right and expediency, and to commit an injustice for the public con-
venience. But I must say, that his theory soars far beyond the reach of
my faculties. It is not necessary to go, on the present occasion, into a
metaphysical inquiry about the origin of the right of property ; and cer-
tainly nothing but the strongest necessity would lead me to discuss a subject
so likely to be distasteful to the House." Etc.

By a paragraph of such exposition he fixes the exact issue, and then says :
" We may now, therefore, I think, descend from these high regions, where
we are in danger of being lost in the clouds, to firm ground and clear light.
Let us look at this question like legislators."1 In other words, this
question is of such nature as to demand practical, not theoretical,
procedure.

1 Macaulay, Speeches, p. 279.

ARC UMENTA TION. 637

II.

Measures looking to Attack and Defense. — For the question's
sake and for the progress of thought, no less than for the sake
of contest, it is of practical value to treat the issue on the
military plan, as something calling for attack and defense.
For not only may an alert opponent draw away one's energies
to side issues; the question itself, also, has many digressions
and subordinate involvements to solicit an unwary debater
away from the main line of procedure. He must keep the
main truth in mind, a cause that must emerge clear from every
confusion of discussion ; must be watchful also of everything
that would make against or obscure it.

The following are some of the things to be provided for, as
occasion calls, in the tactics of debate.

The Burden of Proof. — The question which side in a debate
has the burden of proof, that is, must lead the attack and
make its contention good by positive argument, is answered
by ascertaining which side has the presumption of things
with it. The prevailing order of custom or opinion holds the
field, and has merely the defensive. Whoever proposes an
innovation, or maintains some proposition not generally held,
must take upon himself the labor, or burden, of proving it. A
man is presumed innocent until he is proved guilty. A cus-
tom, statute, or prevailing opinion is presumed good until it
is demonstrated to be bad. An important step it is, therefore,
bringing out as it does the intrinsic strength of the cause,
and dictating the method of procedure, to locate rightly the
burden of proof.

In some merely speculative discussions the question of the
burden of proof is not of enough significance to pay for rais-
ing. Such cases of course are to be discovered and allowed
for by the debater ; they belong to the question of essentials
and non-essentials for his purpose.

638 THE LITERARY TYPES.

Points to be conceded. — A great promotive both of fairnes
in discussion and of clearness in fixing the issue is the conced ;
ing of points on which there is no contest. A debater who wil
yield nothing is liable to incur the odium not -only of being obsti
nate and wrong-headed but of having a lame cause. A debatei
who concedes broadly and generously, on points of commor
agreement, secures a fairer hearing, while also the spirit oi
concession betokens a broader and wiser mastery of the
question. As a matter of clever procedure it is not infre-
quently wise to yield to One's opponent in every point
except the o?ie wherein he would make his opponent yield
to him.

Points to be waived. — To waive is not the same as to con-
cede. It is simply to set aside or postpone some consider-
ation which, though not yielded, is not relevant, not in place
here. This belongs to the watchful business of keeping the
course of argument simple and clear. The consideration
thus waived may come up afterward, when the way is opened
for it by argument. Or it may, if admitted, merely complicate
or befog the case. An unscrupulous opponent may seek no
better escape from a lame cause than to involve the debater
in some irrelevant discussion. It is important, therefore, to
have an alert sense for what should, or may, be waived as not
to the present purpose.

Fairness of Encounter. — Fairness, largeness, honesty of
encounter applies both to the statement of an opponent's
views and to the estimate of an opponent's argument.

i. Fair and full statement of the opponent's position, with-
out attempt to modify his words in order to favor your own
side, is the only procedure that pays in the long run. It pays
for your own argument; for if the opponent's position is
strong, to whittle at it is only to attempt evasion, and thus
indirectly to confess yourself baffled. It pays also in fortify-
ing your own position ; for if in representing your antagonist

ARG UMENTA TION. 639

you leave some unappreciated point, some underrated principle,
it will work to your discomfiture.

2. While of course an opponent's weak argument is to be
shown as weak, on the other hand, when an opponent's argu-
ment is found impregnable, honesty requires that the fact be
fairly acknowledged. Subterfuge and evasion in the face of
an evident truth may be the natural impulse of a wounded
pride, but they are ruinous tactics for a broad and noble
cause. As to the treatment of an opponent's argument recog-
nized as strong, — if its strength is evident and yet you sur-
pass, you have the greater honor ; the stronger foe gives the
nobler victory.

III. •

Order of Arguments. — Although the order in which a body
of arguments is arranged is a matter of cardinal importance,
little can be laid down by way of rule. It must be left for
the most part to the tact of the reasoner, the character of the
audience, the state of feeling and knowledge regarding the
question, the presuppositions to be encountered, and many
other considerations that can be determined only in the
individual case.

All that can be done here, therefore, is to note a few ways
in which arguments of various types and characters derive
advantage from the relative order in which they are placed.

As regards Kind of Argument. — Some types of argument
contain intrinsically a suggestion of the relative position they
should occupy in the discussion.

In an inductive investigation, concerned with a question,
the leading place is naturally due to considerations that estab-
lish an antecedent probability, — the a priori type of argu-
ment.1 This becomes the basis of procedure, the hypothesis;
and whatever is added by testimony comes in then either to

1 See above, p. 608 sq.

640 THE LITERARY TYPES.

strengthen the probability or to compel modification. Thu
the order is from the more general to the more particular an<
circumstantial. If the argument from probability came ii
after the other, it would seem to betray the reasoner's sens*
that positive testimony is inadequate and must be buttressec
up by something else.

The deductive type of argument, based as it is on acknowl
edged truths and principles, has something of a clinching anc
enforcing nature, and hence, in a series of arguments, woulc
naturally occupy a place well along in the discussion, aftei
the preliminaries are disposed of, and the course of thought
draws toward its summary and conclusion. So much of sug-
gestion, not absolute but to be taken for what the individual
case makes it worth, may be drawn from the intrinsic character
of the type.

Arguments from example and analogy, being of more exposi-
tory and illustrative nature,1 come naturally near the begin-
ning or near the end, according as they define the issue and
lay it out, or summarize and clinch it.

As to Relative Strength of Arguments. — A body of argu-
ments, of all literary works, is especially susceptible to climax,
— an order growing to greater strength and cogency. Yet
also, so much depends on the vigor of the first impression,
that it will not do to begin with an argument obviously weak,
however its effect may be retrieved. The resource seems to
be, to begin with arguments that are strong in the sense of
being clear, explanatory, self-evident, — in other words, argu-
ments that contain most of the expository virtue. On the
same principle, the final argument, which gathers up the con-
clusiveness of the whole, should be strong in the sense of being
comprehensive, summarizing, containing most of consequence
and enforcement.

Arguments relatively weak, while they are to occupy the
1 See above, p. 615.

ARGUMENTATION. 641

intermediate position, with bulk and prominence graduated
to their intrinsic value, may derive, as to placing, much
advantage from their companion arguments. Not infre-
quently an argument that does no more than open a prob-
ability for another to utilize, or add a coloring to its
predecessor, may by its juxtaposition both receive and
lend, till each has the strength of two. This fact dictates
that a minor consideration should ally itself with pleas of
more importance, so as to gain the advantage of fellowship
and position.

Order of Refutation. — The order that refutation should
occupy in debate depends on the strength of the position
refuted, and on the prominence it already has in the mind
of the public addressed. When the opposed idea holds full
possession of the field, the first business must be to dislodge
it ; there is no room for a new argument until the old view
is cleared away. On the other hand, when the refuted posi-
tion is insignificant, the order of refutation may recognize its
insignificance ; the refutation may come in incidentally as a
corollary of the argument most potent to overthrow the
error.

All this is merely one aspect of the wisdom that is needed
in refutation, manifest in the estimate placed upon the
opponent's strength. In strength also, as well as in posi-
tion, the refutation should be wisely adapted to the exact
significance of the opposed argument, neither belittling nor
exaggerating it. It is manifestly unwise to underrate the
opponent's position ; the refutation must be stronger if it
is to act as a real refutation. On the other hand, it is
manifestly unwise to spend superfluous energy in refuting a
weak position ; the very exertion put forth advertises it for
strong. To put forth just the power requisite to dispossess
the hearer of an erroneous view is the work of nice calcu-
lation and tact.

642 THE LITERARY TYPES.

Note. — In Webster's speech on "The Constitution not a Compacl
between Sovereign States," already quoted from to illustrate negative argu-
ment, the first half is devoted to an elaborate refutation of the widely
prevalent Nullification doctrine. In Burke's Bristol Speech, where the
refutation is merely an incidental answer to objections, it comes in as a
supplementary part added in the interests of completeness.

II. ORATORY.

From debate, that comparatively simple body of arguments
wherein ordering, tone, and style are determined by the sub-
ject-matter, we pass now to a far more complex kind of
discourse, wherein not the subject-matter alone but the per-
son apprehending it, not the brain alone but the emotions
and the whole man, have their proportioned share in the
appeal. In oratory, on account of the issues involved, we
may fitly conceive all the elements of discourse raised, as it
were, to a higher power, suffused with the glow of immediate
personal interest, and vitalized from the inner world of motive.
Thus we have reached the summit and crown of the rhetorical
art, the utterance wherein style and invention, wherein sub-
ject, author, and audience, all come to typical relation and
expression.

The Essence of Oratory. — Every^ hearer for whom oratory is
designed has a vague ideal of what it should be ; and if what
he hears turns out to be merely a thing in oratory's cloth-
ing,— a lecture, an essay read aloud, or a severely reasoned
speech, — he is aware that something is wrong, though he
cannot define it ; the spoken delivery has not made it ora-
tory. It is important, then, to inquire what are the distin-
guishing qualities, the attributes essential to oratory.

By oratory we mean public discourse of the argumenta-
tive type, in which truth of personal import and issue is
presented and enforced.

ARGUMENTATION. 643

Let us analyze this definition.

i. The truth with which oratory deals is of personal
import ; that is, it so touches the hearer's life-interests that
his active impulses may be enlisted in it ; and it is of per-
sonal issue ; that is, it has a trend of imperative, it contem-
plates more or less nearly an outcome in will and conduct.
In its sphere, therefore, is comprised all the truth by which
men live and devise action ; the truth underlying conduct,
character, faith, enterprise, righteousness.

Note. — A reasoner who is endeavoring to demonstrate that the planet
Mars is inhabited is indeed handling an intricate argumentative problem ;
he is seeking to find a truth, or at least a balance of probability; but if he
solves the problem ever so clearly the answer cannot in the smallest degree
appeal to the hearer's will. An interesting thing it is to know, but there is
no point that can be a claim on him to do. On the other hand, when
Demosthenes ceases presenting to his audience a truth which is also an
appeal, and has given it the requisite power of diction and delivery, his
hearers cry, " Up ! let us march against Philip ! " The truth has taken
possession of their will, and wrought its purpose in an impulse to action.
And such an impulse, more or less immediate, is what vitalizes the truth
presented in oratory.

2. The literary type to which oratory predominantly
belongs is the argumentative ; but the imperative cast of its
theme causes the argumentation to assume a modified, more
impassioned character, which we term persuasion ; instead
of moving in the formal lines of logical reasoning it may
on occasion have the tone and order of emotion and appeal.
All this, however, far from impairing its argumentative
force, rather gives it greater elevation and freedom.

NOTE. — The other literary types also, as will be specified later, are
freely drawn upon for the purposes of oratory; each giving its distinctive
power where it will best aid.

3. The diction of oratory, like that of debate, is spoken
diction, with its fulness and freedom1; but as it is addressed

1 See Spoken Diction, pp. 118-126, above.

644 THE LITERARY TYPES.

not merely to the brain but to the emotions, and througr
these to the will, its general tone is more impassioned anc
fervid. By this is not meant that oratorical diction mus,
assume these strenuous qualities, for it may be as plain and
familiar as conversation ; but also it rises freely with its
theme, and answers to the glow of emotion or sublimity 01
imagination that enters into it. The ideal of oratorical
style, in its general compass and effect, is called elo-
quence.

Working Essentials of Eloquence. — No definition of elo-
quence is needed here, nor directions for acquiring it. It is
not something to be inculcated ; one might as well be com-
manded to write poetry. Nor is it to be acquired by work-
ing directly for it ; one can by effort become declamatory
and turgid, not truly eloquent. For eloquence subsists as
well with the homely as with the sublime ; and into it enter
not words alone but the character of the orator, his skill over
subject and audience, his response to the occasion, — many
things too elusive to bind into rules.1

1 Daniel Webster's famous description of eloquence, description and example in
one, may here stand in lieu of definition : " When public bodies are to be addressed
on momentous occasions, when great interests are at stake, and strong passions
excited, nothing is valuable in speech farther than as it is connected with high intel-
lectual and moral endowments. Clearness, force, and earnestness are the qualities
which produce conviction. True eloquence, indeed, does not consist in speech. It
cannot be brought from far. Labor and learning may toil for it, but they will toil in
vain. Words and phrases may be marshalled in every way, but they cannot compass
it. It must exist in the man, in the subject, and in the occasion. Affected passion,
intense expression, the pomp of declamation, all may aspire to it ; they cannot reach
it. It comes, if it come at all, like the outbreaking of a fountain from the earth, or
the bursting forth of volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, native force. The
graces taught in the schools, the costly ornaments and studied contrivances of speech,
shock and disgust men, when their own lives, and the fate of their wives, their chil-
dren, and their country, hang on the decision of the hour. Then words have lost
their power, rhetoric is vain, and all elaborate oratory contemptible. Even genius
itself then feels rebuked and subdued, as in the presence of higher qualities. Then
patriotism is eloquent ; then self-devotion is eloquent. The clear conception, outrun-
ning the deductions of logic, the high purpose, the firm resolve, the dauntless spirit,
spaaking on the tongue, beaming from the eye, informing every feature, and urging
the whole man onward, right onward to his object, — this, this is eloquence ; or rather,

ARG UMENTA TION. 645

On account of prevalent misconceptions, however, we may
here make a few discriminations, principally by way of saying
what eloquence is not.

i. Eloquence is not grandiloquence ; not synonymous with
ambitious or pretentious style. It is simply wise to respond
to occasion. When the occasion itself is eloquent, then its
best expression may be silence ; and it knows when plainness
and even bareness of statement works with the occasion to
have power on men.

2. Eloquence does, however, exclude considerations that
are subtle and far-fetched, hair-splitting discriminations of
thought, fine-spun threads of reasoning, ultra-literary phrase
and imagery ; because these are ill-adapted to spoken dis-
course, and dissipate earnestness in subtlety of thought.

3. Eloquence, dealing with common men, moves among
the interests and motives that are common to all. Its realm
of truth is common sense, we may almost say commonplace ;
its close touch with life, however, clothes common ideas with
newness of interest.

4. When on occasion eloquence rises into splendor of
style, rhythm, imagery, as it has full liberty to do, still its
basis of structure and phrase remains as plain as ever. Its
great efforts are not complexity but largeness, and greater for
being more simple and close to common men.1

II.

The Basis of Relation with the Audience. — The orator's
relation with his audience is best conceived as an alliance,
wherein, although the audience yield to his views and argu-
ments, they yield because they are glad to yield, and see it

it is something greater and higher than all eloquence, — it is action, noble, sublime;
godlike action." — Webster, Oration on Adams and Jefferson, Webster' 's Great
Speeches, p. 167.

1 For approach of impassioned prose to poetry, see above, pp. 166-168.

646 THE LITERARY TYPES.

tsis

for their interest to do so. He makes, in other words, com-
mon cause with them ; comes to them as a friend and
comrade who, if he is to benefit by convincing them, is to
do so only as he partakes with them in a benefit common
to all. He may indeed gain a great victory over their preju-
dices and opinions ; but it is the victory not of siege and
conquest but of friendliness and favor. It is on this basis
that all oratorical achievements of value are made.

The Initiative. — Of this friendly relation the initiati
which must be taken by the speaker, must be such as to
inspire confidence both in him as an able and honest man,
and in his subject as he presents it. This, in modern ora-
tory, is not done by speaking about one's self, or by a display
of personal sentiments and motives 1 ; rather by that sincerity
of word and bearing which evinces the same trust that it
would awaken.

i. This initiative sums up best in manly, self-respecting
frankness. Audiences resent being talked down to, as from
a loftier station of learning or society ; equally they resent
flattery or effusiveness. He is as good as they ; but also
they have rights, abilities, opinions, that are to be respected.
A man who takes such attitude to his audience has their ear
not only for agreeable things but for sharp and searching,
even reproving truths, so long as they are aware of his
honesty and friendliness.

Note. — This friendly relation with the audience may be strikingly illus-
trated from the career of Abraham Lincoln as a public speaker. Of his
method he himself once said : " I always assume that my audience are in
many things wiser than I am, and I say the most sensible thing I can to
them. I never found that they did not understand me." His biographers,
Nicolay and Hay, say of him : " He assumed at the start a frank and
friendly relation with the jury which was extremely effective. He usually
began, as the phrase ran, by ' giving away his case ' ; by allowing to th
opposite side every possible advantage that they could honestly and justl

1 See above, p. 451.

;

ARGUMENTATION. 647

:laim. Then he would present his own side of the case, with a clearness,
candor, an adroitness of statement which at once flattered and convinced
the jury, and made even the bystanders his partisans." *

2. The effectual bar to such alliance with the audience
is any kind of artifice. The average men composing an audi-
ence, naturally responsive to plain good sense, are apt to
become suspicious of tricks of reasoning, extreme plausibility'
of statement, labored ingenuity of thought, an ironical or
cynical manner, or any way of speaking that does not repre-
sent the orator's station and advantages in life. What they
resent is, being worked upon, or made the target of artful
skill ; what best secures, if not their admiration, at least their
practical assent, is a sensible, straightforward approach which
seems to have in it no art at all.2

Note. — The following anecdote, related by Professor Phelps, will illus-
trate the futility of an evident artifice : —

" Patrick Henry thought to win the favor of the backwoodsmen of
Virginia by imitating their colloquial dialect, of which his biographer gives
the following specimen from one of his speeches : ' All the larnin upon the
yairth are not to be compared with naiteral pairts.' But his hearers, back-
woodsmen though they were, knew better than that; and they knew that a
statesman of the Old Dominion ought to speak good English. They were
his severest critics." 3

The Handling of Human Nature. — An accomplished orator
has by native endowment, and heightens by determinate
culture, a power to read his audience, and to adapt himself
instinctively to them. In its higher exercise this power
becomes a rapport, a magnetism, which cannot be acquired
by rule and whose source is not fully understood. But apart

1 Nicolay and Hay, Life of Lincoln, Vol. i, p. 307.

2 " If the orator can make his hearers believe that he is not only a stranger to all
unfair artifice, but even destitute of all persuasive skill whatever, he will persuade
them the more effectually ; and if there ever could be an absolutely perfect orator, no
one -would {at the time, at least) discover that he was so." — Mathews, Oratory
and Orators, p. 208.

8 Phelps, English Style in Public Discourse, p. 18.

648 THE LITERARY TYPES.

from this, there is a sagacity, a tact, an insight,
employed in approaching men, which is no mystery, but a
part of the good sense requisite in every man who is engaged
in the work of persuasion.

This power to deal with human nature may be noted under
two aspects.

i. It is manifest in an intuitive knowledge, gathered from
the physiognomy and general appearance of the audience,
what is their intellectual capacity, their grade of culture,
their cast of mind, their sphere of prepossession and preju-
dice. The skilful orator, as he goes on, is quick to see the
assent, or the bewilderment, or the disagreement, or the
stolidity, that meets his words, and shapes or modifies his
procedure accordingly. Thus, by the signs that he has by
long conversance learned to read in men, he adapts his ideas
and influence to them.1

Note. — The following is related of Ruf us Choate and his skill with an
audience : " No advocate ever scanned more watchfully the faces of his
hearers while speaking. By long practice he had learned to read their senti-
ments as readily as if their hearts had been throbbing in glass cases. In
one jury address of five hours, he hurled his oratorical artillery for three
of them at the hard-headed foreman, upon whom all his bolts seemed
to be spent in vain. At last, the iron countenance relaxed, the strong eyes
moistened, and Choate was once more master of the situation."2

2. It is shown secondly in the sagacity to approach men
according to the motives and sentiments most operative with
them ; to enter their sphere of ideas, to appreciate their

1 " Him we call an artist who shall play on an assembly of men as a master on the
keys of a piano, — who, seeing the people furious, shall soften and compose them,
shall draw them, when he will, to laughter and to tears. Bring him to his audience,
and, be they who they may, — coarse or refined, pleased or displeased, sulky or sav-
age, with their opinions in the keeping of a confessor, or with their opinions in their
bank-safes, — he will have them pleased and humored as he chooses ; and they shall
carry and execute that which he bids them." — Emerson, Eloquence, Works, Vol. vii,
p. 67.

2 Mathews, Oratory and Orators, p. 372.

ARGUMENTA T/OAT. 649

standards of life, to strike the chord of their sympathies and
interests in accordance with their station, intelligence, or pur-
suit. Thus the orator finds them, and makes the connection
between their interests and his cause.1

Note. — Shakespeare illustrates this knowledge of human nature, and
the lack of it, in the way the speeches of Brutus and Antony, respectively,
are received by the hearers.

Brutus has eloquence but neither knowledge of men nor sympathy with
his mob audience. He presents to them high considerations of patriotism
and honor, and all the response he gets is a vague admiration for his
person : —

" All. Live, Brutus ! live, live !

First Cit. Bring him with triumph home unto his house.

Sec. Cit. Give him a statue with his ancestors.

Third Cit. Let him be Caesar.

Fourth Cit. Caesar's better parts

Shall be crown'd in Brutus.

First Cit. We '11 bring him to his house with shouts and clamors."

Antony, who knows what chords to strike in a mob, dwells on Caesar's
kindness and regard for them, rouses pity for his wounds, which he points
out and describes, and appeals to their cupidity by mentioning his will, in
which they are remembered. For response, he raises in them a fury that
only desperate deeds can quell : —

"All. Revenge! About! Seek! Burn! Fire! Kill! Slay! Let
not a traitor live ! . . .

First Cit. Come, away, away !

We '11 burn his body in the holy place,

1 " Persuasion implies that some course of conduct shall be so described, or
expressed, as to coincide, or be identified, with the active impulses of the individuals
addressed, and thereby command their adoption of it by the force of their own nat-
ural dispositions. A leader of banditti has to deal with a class of persons whose
ruling impulse is plunder; and it becomes his business to show that any scheme of
his proposing will lead to this end. A people with an intense, overpowering patriot-
ism, as the old Romans, can be acted on by proving that the interests of country are
at stake. The fertile oratorical mind is one that can identify a case in hand with
a great number of the strongest beliefs of an audience ; and more especially with
those that seem, at first sight, to have no connection with the point to be carried.
The discovery of identity in diversity is never more called for, than in the attempts
to move men to adopt some unwonted course of proceeding." — Bain, The Senses
and the Intellect, p. 542.

650 THE LITERARY TYPES.

And with the brands fire the traitors' houses.

Take up the body.

Sec. Cit. Go fetch fire.

Third Cit. Pluck down benches.

Fourth Cit. Pluck down forms, windows, anything.
[Exeunt Citizens with the body.

Ant. Now let it work. — Mischief, thou art afoot,

Take thou what course thou wilt." l

Here the greater and better man lost his cause through lack of sagacity :
the unscrupulous man gained his end by skill. But there is no reason for
divorcing skill and tact from a noble cause.

III.

Forms and Agencies of Appeal. — The conciliatory relation
with the audience, and the ruling tone of persuasion, give to
oratory the character of appeal ; its surge of influence sums
up in a plea addressed to the active impulses of men, and
with a more or less immediate solution in action. This plea
is none the less real for being implicit. A modern literary
tendency to subdue the expression of emotion has been
mentioned 2 ; to be less didactic and hortatory is a phase of
the same tendency. This, however, is rather a matter of
form than of intrinsic character. The plea, the appeal, still
exists, albeit in disguise ; it does its work all the more surely
for being not overt and advertised but an unsuspected
power infused through the whole. It is the literary recog-
nition of Pope's wise precept,

" Men must be taught as if you taught them not,
And things unknown propos'd as things forgot." 3

This pervasive power of appeal is secured most fundamen-
tally of all by the imperative character of the theme, as con-
ceived and worked to throughout the discourse. As already

1 Quotations from Shakespeare, Julius Ccesar, Act iii, Scene 2.

2 See above, p. 96, footnote, and p. 102.
8 Pope, Essay on Criticism, Pt. iii, 1. 15.

A R G UMENTA TWIST. 65 1

said,1 the orator chooses an object rather than a subject ; he
is concerned in creating or augmenting some wave of active
impulse; the information he imparts and the entertainment
he affords is all subservient to this. So, having conceived his
theme in this form of precept or dictate, his whole discourse
works to make the object clear and cogent.

In order to achieve such an object, the speaker must enlist
the whole man in his cause, must make him at once see, feel,
and will the truth. In discussing, therefore, the procedures
necessary to this end, we will take up each side of human
nature in turn, and consider what phase of the appeal is
naturally adapted to it.

i. The Appeal to the Intellect. — This, of course, in the ora-
tory of an educated, self-governed people, is the controlling
element. Action must be intelligent action, proposed and
grounded, its means and ends determined, through the think-
ing powers, the brain. To be sure, thought in itself does not
furnish impulse ; but when by other means impulse is stirred
and enthusiasm roused, the thought is there to guide and
temper, making the outcome sane and wise. The intellectual
control it is that rescues emotion from the maudlin or frivo-
lous, and united action from the wild frenzy of a mob.

Illustrations of Action without Intellectual Regulative. —
Mark Antony, in the scene already cited, was but too willing to rouse
passions without thought. The mob rushed blindly forth to destroy, fell
upon Cinna the poet and tore him in pieces merely because he bore the same
name with Cinna the conspirator, — were, in short wholly uncontrollable in
their mad fury; while Antony, well pleased, satisfied himself with saying, —

" Now let it work. — Mischief, thou art afoot,
Take thou what course thou wilt."

Another remarkable instance of passions aroused without a basis of rea-
son is recorded in Acts xix. 23-41, where certain designing people lash a
mob to frenzy by an appeal to their cupidity. " Some therefore cried one
thing, and some another : for the assembly was confused ; and the more

1 See above, p. 428, 3.

652 THE LITERARY TYPES.

part knew not wherefore they were come together." And when Ale?
attempted to explain matters to them, " all with one voice about the space
of two hours cried out, ' Great is Diana of the Ephesians.' "

i. This appeal to the intellect, however, has different
degrees of explicitness, according to the nature of the issue ;
and this fact it is which causes the great variety in the seem-
ing fervidness of public speech. To put it in other words :
in every persuasive discourse there are two elements, the
didactic and the hortatory. In old-fashioned oratory these
two elements, as argument and application, occupied different
sections of the discourse ; nowadays, however, it is generally
deemed better to blend the two, giving fact or argument the
attitude of appeal, and appeal the solidity of information or
truth. At the same time, these elements may have varying
emphasis and proportion, according as the address is con-
cerned more with the end of action or with the means. When
men are slow to commit themselves to the end proposed,
exhortation is needed to awaken a sense of its importance ;
when, though earnest in allegiance to the end, men are not
sufficiently informed as to the means, the didactic element
must predominate, in order to make their allegiance rational
and wise.

Note. — In the late Civil War, for instance, when throughout the land
orators were urging men to enlist and serve their country's need, the ques-
tion of means was but subordinate, and the principal element of discourse
was exhortation. On the other hand, in a large proportion of pulpit dis-
course, that which is addressed to those who have already complied with
the general end of obeying Christ as Lord, the predominating element must
be educative, — setting forth the means and involvements of a Christian life.

2. Of the literary types concerned in the appeal to the
intellect, the argumentative, predominating, determines the
classification of oratory ; it is in the liberal sense argumenta-
tion. Exposition, with its passion for clearness and fulness
of conception, has a function scarcely second in importance.

ARG UMENTA T/OJV. 65 3

If the other types, narration and description, are employed
in this kind of appeal, it is in the interests of these, — to fur-
nish help in explaining and establishing a theory, not for
their picturesque or stirring power.

Note. — In courts of justice, for instance, the elaborate machinery of
taking testimony, cross-examination, and so forth, may in one light be
regarded as accumulating material for a story of the event in question ;
and the lawyer's plea often consists largely in reconstructing the story
according to his interpretation of the evidence. An example of such a
narrative may be found in the beginning of Webster's speech on the murder
of Captain Joseph White.1

3. As to style-qualities, two things in the appeal to the
intellectual powers of the hearer are imperative, constituting
in fact the practical summary of oratorical style.

First, it should aim, with especial rigor, to economize the
hearer's interpreting power.2 Words from the every-day
vocabulary, simplicity and directness of phrase, a strong and
pointed sentence structure, an ordering of parts made lucid
by marked indications of plan and consecutiveness, reasoning
where there is only one step from premise to conclusion and
no solution is left obscure or in long suspense, — these are the
economizing agencies which adapt oratorical style to popular
apprehension. The ideal is to use up as little of the hearer's
energy as possible in merely understanding, because it is a
case wherein the stress comes on realizing and on committal
to the issue.

Secondly, for purposes of persuasion thought should be
presented copiously. It is a case wherein repetition of
thought in many aspects and phases, and body of ampli-
fication secured by detail and illustration, are of especial
service.3 For the hearer's mind has not merely to catch

1 How narrative may be turned into argument is illustrated above, p. 605, note.

2 See above, p. 24.

3 For this method of amplification and its uses, see above, pp. 462, 2, 465.

654 THE LITERARY TYPES.

and apprehend the thought; he needs to be, so to say,
rated with it, so that he may carry it with him as an impulse
and working consciousness.

Note. — The first of these requisites will help us to understand why a
fine-drawn style, as mentioned on p. 645, 2, above, is unfavorable to
eloquence. And on account of the second requisite a condensed and epi-
grammatic style, though charming for other reasons, is not favorable to
persuasion, at least as the staple of the discourse ; its office is to give point
and rememberable quality to what is elsewhere amplified (compare p. 353,
above). The comparative futility of this condensed style is illustrated in
the speech of Brutus, in Shakespeare's Julius Ccesar.

2. The Appeal to the Emotions. — By this element of ora-
tory, which like the others is not to be thought of as set off
by itself but as pervasive and implicit, the hearer is roused
from apathy or indifference, or from the passiveness of
contemplative thought, and his sympathies are made to
respond to the pathos or humor, the sublimity or beauty,
the inspiring or exasperating influence of the occasion, so
^\as not merely to contemplate but to enter into and realize
the nature of the issue at stake. This appeal is not yet per-
suasion ; nor does the power to make men weep or laugh
mean oratorical power. It bears the same relation to actual
persuasion that overcoming inertia does to the working of
a machine : once get the wheels in motion, and it is com-
paratively easy to keep them going until the motion is
directed to a useful function. Once rouse the man to feel
the issue, and the way is clear to translate enthusiasm into
duty.

1. For this kind of appeal the portraying and vivifying
forms of discourse are called into play : the picturing agency
of description, imagery, illustration ; the telling scenes, situa-
tions, dramatic points of narration ; the trenchant vigor of
antithesis, epigram, trope, interrogation. These are here
recounted as if they could be used as directed and produce

ARGUMENTA TION. 655

the emotion ; but behind them, of course, and without which
they are vain, is the speaker's personality, possessed of the
same emotion, and reinforcing all these with voice and
action.

Illustration. — Antony's speech over Caesar's dead body, as given
by Shakespeare, illustrates the concrete, vivid, amplified portrayal adapted
to awaken the hearer's realizing power; it reaches the crowd through their
imagination and sympathy. Here is part of it : —

" If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.
You all do know this mantle : I remember
The first time ever Caasar put it on;
'Twas on a summer's evening, in his tent,
That day he overcame the Nervii :
Look, in this place ran Cassius' dagger through :
See what a rent the envious Casca made :
Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabb'd ;
And as he pluck'd his cursed steel away,
Mark how the blood of Caesar follow'd it,
As rushing out of doors, to be resolved
If Brutus so unkindly knock'd, or no :
For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel:
Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him!
This was the most unkindest cut of all ;
For, when the noble Cassar saw him stab,
Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms,
Quite vanquish'd him : then burst his mighty heart ;
And, in his mantle muffling up his face,
Even at the base of Pompey's statua,
Which all the while ran blood, great Caesar fell." 1

2. In employing the means that rouse emotion, the speaker
has to consult wisely the taste, the culture, the familiar ideas,
of the persons addressed. What to him is funny may leave
them stolid ; what to him is cheap pathos may rouse their
liveliest feelings of sympathy or grief. Uneducated people
. are more easily swayed by pathos, humor, or impassioned
phrase ; but at the same time more palpable and striking,
more coarse-grained means must be used. The jokes must be
of the knock-down kind, with a point like a bludgeon, and
1 Shakespeare, Julius Ccesar. Act iii, Scene 2.

656 THE LITERARY TYPES.

must turn not so much on words as on acts and situations
The emotional figures must be overt and emphatic, verging to
declamation and rant. Educated people, on the other hand,
acting more from judgment than from sympathy, are less sus-
ceptible to direct emotional appeal ; but when they are moved
it is by more delicate means, — by a pathetic touch, by some
stroke on the subtler chords of human nature, rather than by
horse-play or melodrama. It is part of the orator's handling
of human nature to enter the sphere where his audience's
tastes and sympathies are, and by his wisely chosen words
give moving voice to them.

Note. — The greater delicacy and subdual of modern literary methods,
already mentioned, is an aspect of this ; a transfer to the more educated
and tasteful sphere into which the culture of the age is moving. It betokens
not less emotion, but emotion concerned with other objects, — which latter
may be deeper and more vital though less demonstrative.

3. Emotion cannot be manufactured ; it must exist in
genuine depth and fulness in the orator himself, and flow to
his hearers by the natural channel of truth. At the same
time our modern standard, at least among the more culti-
vated classes, is not favorable to a great show of emotion.
The signs of emotion, in voice and manner, and to a great
extent in style, are better suppressed, or rather subdued to
understatement, in order that the grounds and provocatives
of emotion may be kept in advance of them. Then if in
spite of repressive effort they break bounds, they are exhibited
to real purpose.1

1 " It was a maxim of Webster's, that violence of language was indicative of
feebleness of thought and want of reasoning power, and it was his practice rather to
understate than overstate the strength of his confidence in the soundness of his
own arguments, b-'d the logical necessity of his conclusions. He kept his auditor
constantly in advance'of him, by suggestion rather than by strong asseveration, by a
calm exposition of considerations which ought to excite feeling in the heart of both
speaker and hearer, not by an undignified and theatrical exhibition of passion in
himself," — Marsh, Lectures on the English Language, p. 235,

ARG UMENTA TION. 659

them. To say then that it is desirable to appeal to motives
is not enough ; it is futile and suicidal not to base a plea
%n some way on motive.

Note. — Hence it is that in investigating the actions of men, motives
;*are necessarily taken for granted. In criminal cases, for instance, argu-
ments from sign and circumstance seek to substantiate themselves by find-
ing some tendency in the man, good or bad, sufficient to cause the deed ;
and if a sufficient motive to a strange act cannot be found, or is obviously
wanting, the fact throws doubt on the sanity of the perpetrator. Thus in
the universal practical mind of men, motiveless ideas either belong to the
irresponsible vagaries of madness, or are the mere riot of invention, —

" Fantastic beauty ; such as lurks
In some wild Poet, when he works
Without a conscience or an aim"

2. Motives are not appealed to as good and bad ; for few
if any will own to being actuated by bad motives, and it
would be the ruin of any cause to appeal to such grounds of
action. There is, however, an intuitive recognition of motives
as lower and higher; the lower, beginning with some phase
of self-interest, being more universal and practical, the higher,
while it may be more speculative, being more complimentary
to human nature, and more in the line of highest character.
Not always can the highest motives, though acknowledged, be
counted on to bring things to pass ; but the appeal should be
to the highest that can be counted on for effect.

Note. — No classification of motives can here be attempted; but three
planer of motive, from lower to higher, may here be noted : —

i. Self-Interest: passing upward from profit, prudence, ambition to
rise, and the like, to the finer sentiments of integrity, self-expression,
self-respect.

2. DUTY : to self, which is identified with many motives of the lower
plane ; then to immediate dependents, to laws and customs, to society, to
country, to God.

3. BENEVOLENCE: which is unselfish, working in philanthropy, self-
abnegation and sacrifice, love to neighbor, love to humanity, love of the
highest ideals.

660 THE LITERARY TYPES.

Any higher motive may enter into and refine a lower ; any lower motive,
when interrogated, is prone to estimate itself on a higher plane. And edu-
cation in motive, always making higher planes and standards more operative
and practical, is the supreme education of humanity.

3. Three ways of appealing to motive — which we may
regard as urging and enforcing the premises of persuasive
argument — may here be noted.

First, and most clearly, the motive is named, and the pro-
posed action identified with it. This is the most palpably
argumentative phase of oratory.

Example. — In the following the motive appealed to is solicitude for
the nation's stability and welfare : —

" I am far indeed from wishing that the Members of this House should
be influenced by fear in the bad and unworthy sense of that word. But
there is an honest and honorable fear, which well becomes those who are
intrusted with the dearest interests of a great community ; and to that fear
I am not ashamed to make an earnest appeal. It is very well to talk of
confronting sedition boldly, and of enforcing the law against those who
would disturb the public peace. No doubt a tumult caused by local and
temporary irritation ought to be suppressed with promptitude and vigor.
Such disturbances, for example, as those which Lord George Gordon raised
in 1780, should be instantly put down with the strong hand. But woe to
the Government which cannot distinguish between a nation and a mob!
Woe to the Government which thinks that a great, a steady, a long con-
tinued movement of the public mind is to be stopped like a street riot !
This error has been twice fatal to the great House of Bourbon. God b
praised, our rulers have been wiser. The golden opportunity which, if
once suffered to escape, might never have been retrieved, has been seized
Nothing, I firmly believe, can now prevent the passing of this noble law,
this second Bill of Rights." x

Secondly, as a more implicit and literary mode of appeal,
the presence of the motive may be so taken for granted that,
as when a premise is left unmentioned, the motive is treated
as not needing identification ; its power is pervasive, coloring
thought and style, keeping the whole key of words harmonious
1 Macaulay, Speeches, Vol. i, p. 56.

ARG UMENTA TION. 661

with it, and thus acting as a kind of inspiration. This is the
effective way with educated audiences, who are more respon-
sive to the finer shadings of thought and sentiment ; it is the
prevailing one also in demonstrative and memorial oratory.

Example. — The following, for those to whom the oration is addressed,
has all the power of appeal, though there is no explicit naming of
motives: —

" Despite Napoleon even battles are not sums in arithmetic. Strange
that a general, half of whose success was due to a sentiment, the glory of
France, which welded his army into a thunderbolt, and still burns for us
in the fervid song of Beranger, should have supposed that it is numbers
and not conviction and enthusiasm which win the final victory. The career
of no man in our time illustrates this truth more signally than Garibaldi's.
He was the symbol of the sentiment which the wise Cavour molded into a
nation, and he will be always canonized more universally than any other
Italian patriot, because no other represents so purely and simply to the
national imagination the Italian ideal of patriotic devotion. His enthusiasm
of conviction made no calculation of defeat, because while he could be
baffled he could not be beaten. It was a stream flowing from a mountain
height, which might be delayed or diverted, but knew instinctively that it
must reach the sea. • Italia fara da se.' Garibaldi was that faith incar-
nate, and the prophecy is fulfilled. Italy, more proud than stricken, bears
his bust to the Capitol, and there the eloquent marble will say, while Rome
endures, that one man with God, with country, with duty and conscience,
is at last the majority."1

Thirdly, such appeal may in strong cases take the form of
invective. This is simply appeal in negative ; that is, it
endeavors to shame the hearers out of unworthy motives, in
favor of motives more consonant with the cause and more
worthy of the men. Just as one may appeal to justice, patri-
otism, honesty, benevolence, so, as a reverse, he may inveigh
against wrong, cowardice, meanness, selfishness. The urgency
of the occasion, together with the vehemence or tact of the
speaker, determines the method. It should be observed, that
from the beginning the drift of sentiment in oratory has
1 George William Curtis, Orations and Addresses, Vol. i, p. 233'

662 THE LITERARY TYPES.

been increasingly against using personalities ; it is principles
rather than men, that should be attacked.

Example. — The following, as an instrument of refutation, accuses
Pitt of public dishonesty and lack of faith : —

" Sir, I will not say that in all this he was not honest to his own purpose
and that he has not been honest in his declarations and confessions this
night ; but I cannot agree that he was honest to this House or honest to t)u
people of this country. To this House it was not honest to make them
counteract the sense of the people, as he knew it to be expressed in th
petitions upon the table, nor was it honest to the country to act in a di:
guise, and to pursue a secret purpose unknown to them, while affecting t
take the road which they pointed out. I know not whether this may not be
honesty in the political ethics of the right honorable gentlemen ; but I know
that it would be called by a very different name in the common transactions
of society, and in the rules of morality established in private life. I know
of nothing in the history of this country that it resembles, except, perhaps,
one of the most profligate periods — the reign of Charles II. , when the sale
of Dunkirk might probably have been justified by the same pretens
That monarch also declared war against France, and did it to cover
negotiation by which, in his difficulties, he was to gain a ' solid system oj
finance.'' "

1 Fox, Rejection of Bonaparte 's Overtures, Select British Eloquence, p. 542.

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

[The titles of main divisions, books, chapters, and sections are in small capitals.]

Abbreviation and condensation of words

in poetic diction, 142.
Abstract, 583.

Accelerated movement in narration, 523.
Accurate use of words, 46.
Adaptation in rhetoric, 1 ; Lines of, 3.
Additive conjunctions, 260.
Adjective and adverb in prose, The, 149.
Adjustments of style, 20.
Adverb, Placing of the, 245.
Adversative conjunctions, 261.
A fortiori argument, 613.
Alertness of mind, 398.
Alexandrine verse, 182.
Alienisms, 59.
Allegory, 85.

Alliance with audience in oratory, 645.
Alliteration, 156; in prose, 159.
Allusion, 90 ; in amplification, 473.
Alternation of kinds of sentence, 348;

of kinds of paragraph, 382.
Alternative, Analyzing by, 623.
Ambiguity, Measures against, 241 ; in

exposition, 577.
Americanisms, 55.
Amphibrach measure, 177.
Amphimacer measure, 178.
Amplification, Objects of , 462 ; Means

of, 464 ; Accessories of, 471.
Amplifying ideas, The, 458.
Amplifying matter of description, 485.
Amplifying paragraph, The, 380.
Amplitude, 287.

663

Analogy, yy ; in exposition, 567 ; in
argumentation, 614.

Analysis, in exposition, 579; by alterna-
tive, 623 ; for refutation, 627.

Anapestic measure, 176.

Anecdotes in amplification, 470; as type
of narrative, 516.

Animus of word and figure, 102.

Antecedent probability, 609.

Antecedent, 246; Preparing the, for
reference, 249.

Anticipative it and there, 254.

Anticlimax, 294.

Antique diction, 133.

Antithesis, 271 ; Errors of, 274 ; as ob-
verse, 466 ; in description, 496 ; in nar-
ration, 526, 527 ; Exposition by, 566.

Aphorism, 460.

Aphoristic literature, 461.

Aposiopesis, in narrative, 528.

A posteriori argument, 609.

Apostrophe, 97.

Apothegmatic ending of paragraph, 378 ;
summary of thought, 467.

Appeal, Forms and agencies of, 650; to
the intellect, 651; to the emotions,
654; to the will, 657; to motives,
660; by invective, 661.

Appendages of the plan, 449.

Approaches of prose to poetry,
The, 163.

Approaches to invention (Chap.
xii), 389.

664

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

A priori argument, 609.

Archaic vocabulary, Employment of, 66.

Archaisms, poetic, 144.

Argument, inductive, Grades and species
of, 608 ; a priori, 609 ; a posteriori,
609; from sign, 611 ; from example,
613; a fortiori, 613; from analogy,
614.

Argumentation (Chap, xvii), 597;
definition of, 597 ; in its type
forms (Section First), 598; Con-
structive, 599; Destructive,
622 ; in ordered system (Section
Second), 633.

Arguments, Order of, 639.

Arrangement of words, prose, 113; in
plan, principles of relation and,
438.

Art and science discriminated, 4 ; fine
and mechanical, in discourse, 7 ; of

NARRATION, 513.

Association, Figures of, 77 ; of thoughts,

Laws of, 443.
Assonance, 157.
Asyndeton, 318 footnote.
Attack and defense in debate, 637.
Attenuation of stress, 339.
Audience, Orator's relation with, 645.
Authority, 603.

Balanced structure, 309 ; sentence, The,

352-
Ballad measure, 180.
Bathos, 294.

Beauty, as quality of style, 37.
Beginnings and endings in paragraph

construction, ^7^-
Bifurcate classification, 572, 623.
Biography, 548.
Blending and interchange of measures,

198.
Body, by amplification, 462.
Brevity, Tendency to, in poetic diction,

141.
Burden of proof, The, 637.

Cadence, 219; as conclusion, 456.

Caesura, The, 202.

Cant, 72.

Casual topics of meditation, 408.

Causal conjunctions, 264.

Cause and effect, Law of, in thought-
association, 445 ; Particulars viewed
as, 608.

Chain of reasoning, 621, 627.

Characters in a story, The, 530.

Charted order, Description by, 487.

Choice of words for denotation
(Chap, iii), 46.

Circumlocution, 291.

Circumstantial evidence, 611.

Citations, References and, 419.

Classical or recitative measures, The, 174.

Classification, 569; Bifurcate, 572.

Clause in prose rhythm, The, 217.

Clearness, 29 ; in the thought, 29 ; in
the construction, 3 1 ; The habit of
seeking, 403.

Climax, 292 ; in stages of plan, 440 ;
in narration, 527.

Coinage for occasion, 64.

Collocation, 240.

Colloquialisms, Non-, in poetic diction,
145.

Colon, The, 330.

Coloring by amplification, 463 ; due to
association, 93.

Combinations and proportions in sen-
tences, 354.

Comma, The, 328.

Commonplace books, 419.

Comparison not simile, 78 ; Spirit of a,
103; Cautions in, 257.

Compendious reading, 413.

Completeness of division, 572.

Composita type of sentence, 317.

Composition (Book iii), 221.

Composition as a whole, The (Chap,
xiii), 420.

Compounding of words in poetic diction,
143-

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

665

Concentration, Tendency to, in poetic

diction, 141.
Concession in debate, 638.
Conclusion of a literary work, The, 454 ;

relation to body of work, 454 ; forms

of, 454 ; style of, 456.
Concomitants, Particulars viewed as,

611.
Concord of subject and verb, 223.
Condensation, 295 ; for vigor, 295 ;

for rapidity, 299; as abstracting

process, 583.
Condensation of words in poetic diction,

142.
Conditional conjunctions, 265.
Conjunctional relation, 259.
Connotation, as related to force, 34;

Words and figures for (Chap.

iy)> 75 '■> OF idea, 76 ; of emotion,

94 ; of the relative, 236.
Constructive, Argumentation, 599.
Constructive end, in narration, The, 517.
Contiguity, Law of, in thought-associa-
tion, 443.
Continuity of movement, in narration,

520.
Contrast, Law of, in thought-association,

444 ; element of, in narrative move-
ment, 526.
Coordinating class of conjunctions, 260.
Copious presentation, in oratory, 653.
Core of definition, The, 559.
Correlation, 257.
Couplet, The heroic, 185.
Creative reading, 409.
Criticism, 591 ; ways of publication, 592;

requisites of, 593; The higher, 580.
Cross-examination, 601, 631.
Cue, The stress-point as a, 340.
Culture promoting adjustments of style,

The, 21, 22, 23.
Cumulative conjunctions, 260.

Dactylic measure, 176; hexameter, 183.
Dash, The, 331 ; double, 130 ; single, 130.

Debate, 634.

Decorative epithets, 147.

Deduction, 616.

Deductive order of thought-building,
The, 448.

Definition, 558 ; The core of, 559 ; Analy-
sis of, 561; genetic, 562; Supple-
mentation of, 563.

Degree of meaning, 50.

Demonstratives and numerals in pro-
spective reference, 255.

Denotation, Choice of words for
(Chap, iii), 46.

Denouement in narrative, The, 517.

Derivation and history of words, 50; in
exposition, 576.

Description (Chap, xiv), 477; Defini-
tion of, 477; underlying prin-
ciples of, The, 478 ; Mechanism of,
481 ; by charted order, 487 ; by im-
pression, 488; Accessories of,
493 ; Subjective, 502 ; in litera-
ture, 506; what narration owes to,
533 5 Logical, 564.

Descriptive details, Subdual of, 486 ; in
amplification, 468.

Descriptive words, 162, 296; poetry,
508.

Details, in amplification, 468; Subdual
of descriptive, 486.

Dialect, 55, 56, 134.

Dialogue, The, in narrative, 532.

Diction (Book ii), 44 ; Definition of,
44; Prose, standard and oc-
casional (Chap, v), 107; spoken,
118; of written discourse, 126;
Manufactured, 132 ; Poetic, and
its interactions with prose
(Chap, vi), 139; The sentence
in, 345-

Didactic end, in narration, 518.

Digressions, 375..

Dilemma, 624.

Discipline, as aid to invention, 392;
Reading for, 411.

666

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

Discourse, definition of, i ; written for
public delivery, 122 ; tone of, The,

135-

Discursive narration, 535.

Disposal of results of reading, 417.

Distinction, in plan headings, 440.

Diversity of interest, in invention, 399.

Division, 568 ; Logical, 569 ; principle
of, 570; members of, 571 ; complete-
ness of, 572; Literary, 573.

Double negative, 270; paragraph topic,

Drama, The, 553.
Dynamic stress, 340.

Economy, Principle of, 23 ; in oratory,

653.

Effects, Suggestion by, 500.

Elegiac stanza, The, 186.

Elements of poetic rhythm, 172.

Ellipsis, 298, 301.

Eloquence, Working essentials of, 644.

Emotion, in rhetorical adaptation, 4 ;
and will, as basis of force, 36 ; Con-
notation of, 94; Overt figures
of, 95.

Emotions, The appeal to the, 654.

Emphasis, as element of force, 35 ; Dis-
tribution of, 335.

Enforcement, Order of, in thought-build-
ing, 448.

Enlargement of syllogism, 620.

Enthymeme, The syllogism in, 618.

Enumeration, as instrument of amplifi-
cation, 467.

Epigram, 273.

Episodes, 537.

Epithet, in poetic diction, 147 ; The
phrasal, or packed, 149; in descrip-
tion, 497.

Epithets, decorative, 147; essential, 148.

Equation, The personal, 581.

Essay, The, 594.

Essential epithets, 148.

Euphemism, 292.

Euphonious words and combinations in
poetic diction, 154.

Euphony, as component of beauty, 38;
Rank of, in prose diction, 114.

Euphuism, 353 note.

Evoluta type of sentence, 318.

Example, Argument from, 613.

Exclamation, 95.

Exegesis of terms, 562, 576.

Exemplification, as instrument of am-
plification, 468 ; as instrument of
exposition, 565.

Expert testimony, 605.

Explication of propositions, 562, 578.

Explicit reference, 370.

Exposition (Chap, xvi), 554; Defini-
tion of, 554; intensive, 558; exten-
sive, 568 ; OF THINGS, 557; OF THE
SYMBOLS OF THINGS, 575 ; IN
ERATURE, 591.

Expository work, Forms of, 594.
Extensive, Exposition, 568.

Fact, historic, The finding of, 544 ;

interpreting of, 546.
Facts, Discovery of, in argumentation,

599-

Fairness, of encounter, in debate, 638.

Fallacies, Exposure of, 626.

Fiction, 550 ; Liberties and limits of, 550.

Figures, Words and, for connota-
tion (Chap, iv), 75 ; Practical value
of, 75 ; of association, Overt, 77; of
emotion, Overt, 95 ; in prose diction,
1 1 1 ; Graphic uses of, in description,
494.

Finding of historic fact, The, 544.

" Fine writing," 71.

Foot, The, in poetic rhythm, 172.

Force, as quality of style, ^3 ', Massing

OF ELEMENTS FOR, 335.

Forecast of end, in narration, 514.
Foreign words and idioms, 59.
Foreigner's English, 133.
Form, the sense of literary, 390.

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

667

Generals, Inference from, 616; to par-
ticulars, in order, 448 ; in amplifi-
cation, 467.

Genetic definition, 562.

Genus and differentia, Definition by,

559-

Grammar, as foundation of rhetoric, 2.
Graphic uses of figures, in description,
494.

Habits of meditation, 402 ; of seeking
clearness, 403 ; of seeking order,
404 ; of seeking independent con-
clusions, 405.

Harmony, as component of beauty, 39.

Heroic couplet, The, 185.

Heterogeneous sentence, The, 320.

Hexameter, iambic, 182 ; dactylic, 183.

Hiatus, in rhythm, 218.

Higher criticism, The, 580.

Historic present, 98, 227 ; fact, The find-
ing of, 544; The interpreting of,
546.

Historical perspective, 524.

History, 544 ; narrative, 546 ; scenic, 547 ;
philosophic, 547.

History of words, 50.

Human nature, The handling of, by the
orator, 647.

Hymn stanzas, 187.

Hyperbole, 99 ; in description, 496.

Hypothesis, The, 607.

Iambic measure, 1 74 ; pentameter, 1 79 ;
tetrameter, 180.

Idea, Connotation of, 76.

Idealism, in fiction, 551.

Idiom, Tissue of, 53.

Idioms, Foreign, 59,61 ; Three, 232.

Illative conjunctions, 264.

Imagination and taste, as basis of beauty,
40.

Imaginative diction, Avails of, in descrip-
tion, 493 ; type of prose diction, i'.S.

Impassioned type of prose diction, 166.

Implicatory words and coloring, 8y.

Implicit reference, in paragraphs, 372.

Impression, Description by, 488.

Independent conclusions, Habit of seek-
ing, 405.

Induction, 607.

Inductive Argument, Grades and spe-
cies of, 608 ; order in thought-
building, 446.

Inference from particulars, 606 ; from
generals, 616.

Infinitive, The, 230.

Informative description, 509.

Initiative taken by orator, 646.

Insignificant sentence, The, 321.

Intellect, in rhetorical adaptation, 3 ; as
basis of clearness, 32 ; The appeal to
the, in oratory, 651.

Intellectual type of prose diction, 164.

Intelligible use of words, 52.

Intensive, Exposition, 558.

Interchange and blending of measures,
in poetic rhythm, 198.

Interest, Diversity of, in invention, 399.

Interior and outlying tracts of sentence,

339-

Interpretatio, 465.

Interpreting of historic fact, The, 546.

Interrelation of sentence ele-
ments, 320 ; Errors of, 320.

Interrogation, 96.

Interwoven plots, 538.

Invective, 661.

Invention (Part ii), 385 ; as division
of rhetoric, 9 ; in its elements
(Book ^,387; Definition of, 388;
Approaches to (Chap, xii), 389.

Inventive talent, Lines of, 394.

Inversion, 276; for emphasis, 276;
for adjustment, 278.

Investigation, Order of, in thought-
building, 446.

Irony, 100.

Italics for emphasis, 128.

Iteration, 303.

668

Joints of structure, 116.

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

Key of words, The, 104.
Kinds of paragraphs, 379.

Landmarks of structure in completed

work, 435.
Latin derivatives, 70.
Length of sentence, Effect of, in diction,

345-

Lengthiness distinguished from length,

141 footnote.
Liberties of fiction, 550.
Life of verse, The, 189.
Limitations of fiction, 550.
Line, The, in poetry, 179 note.
Literary analysis, in exposition, 579;

division, 573.
Literary form, The sense of, 390;

division, 573 ; types, The (Book v),

475-

Litotes, 105, 271.

Logic, as foundation of rhetoric, 3.

Logical definition, 559 ; description, 564 ;

division, 569.
Long sentence, The, in diction, 347.
Loose sentence, The, 351.

Main ideas of discourse, The, 432.

Manufactured diction, 132.

Mass of sentence, in diction, 350.

Massing of sentence elements for
force, 335.

Material and handling, Problems of, in
description, 479.

Meditation, Habits of, 402.

Medium, The supporting, in story, 530.

Members of division, 571.

Metaphor, 80 ; in description, 495.

Metaphrase, 585.

Method of residues, The, 625.

Metonymy, 88, 89.

Metre, 171 ; Relations of phrase and, 208.

Metrical unit, 172; clause, 178; sen-
tence, 183.

Motives, 658 ; Grades of, 659 note.

Movement, The narrative, 520; Prepara-
tive elements in, 525 ; Continuity of,
520; Rate of, 522.

Musical rhythm, Overtones of, 190.

Narration (Chap, xv), 511; Defini-
tion of, 512; The art of, 513;
The end of, 514; convoyed by de-
scription, 533; Discursive, 535; in

LITERATURE, 543.

Narrative history, 546.

Narrative movement, Aid from, in de-
scription, 503 ; Continuity of, 520 ;
Rate of, 522 ; Preparative elements
in, 525.

Narrative touches, 504.

Narratives, Combination of, 537.

Native elements of vocabulary, 68.

Natural bent, as starting point of inven-
tion, 390.

Negation, 268 ; degrees of, 268.

Negative, Double, 270.

Neologisms, 62.

Newspaper words, 63 ; criticism, 592.

Non-colloquialisms in poetic diction, 145.

Non sequitur, 628.

Notes, Taking, 418.

Notions, 555.

Novel, The, 552.

Nucleus of description, The, 483.

Observation, The spirit of, 397 ; sketches
of travel and, 509.

Obverse, The, as repetition, 466 ; in ex-
position, 567.

Occasion, The response to, 393.

Occasional diction, 118.

Ode stanza, The, 185.

Only, Placing of, 241.

Onomatopoetic words and coloring, 160.

Oratory, 642 ; The essence of, 642.

Order, The habit of seeking, 404.

Order of arguments in debate, 639; of
refutation, 641.

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

669

Orders of thought-building, 446.
Organic processes (Chap, ix),

268.
Organism of the sentence, 312.
Outline, The skeleton, 433.
Outset and culmination, in sentence

mass, 336.
Overtones of musical rhythm, 190.

Packed or phrasal epithet, 149.

Panoramic portrayal, 505.

Paradox, 273.

Paragraph, The (Chap, .xi), 356;
Definition of, 356 ; proper length
of, 357; in sum, 358; in structure,
364; scheme of structure, 365.

Paragraphs, Kinds of, 379.

Parallel construction, 308 ; in paragraph,
376.

Parallels, Particulars used as, 612.

Paraphrase, 585.

Parenthesis, Marks of, 129.

Parity of reasoning, 632.

Participial phrase, The, 227.

Participle, The misrelated, 228 ; unre-
lated, 228 ; pendent, 229.

Particulars, Inference from, 606 ; viewed
as cause and effect, 608 ; viewed as
concomitants, 611 ; used as parallels,
612.

Partition, 573.

Pause, The, in rhythm, 218.

Pentameter, 179.

Periodic sentence, The, 350.

Personal equation, The, 581.

Personification, 84 ; in description, 495.

Perspective, Historical, 524.

Perspicuity, as aspect of clearness, 31.

Persuasion, 643.

Philosophic history, 547.

Phrasal or packed epithet, 149 ; rhythm,
Undertone of, 202 ; segmentation,
The, 204.

Phrase and metre, relations of, 208 ; in
prose rhythm, 212.

Phraseology (Chap, viii), 223.

Picturing power of language, in poetic
diction, 146.

Plan, the making of the, 432 ; append-
ages of, 449 ; in paragraph, 364.

Pleonasm, 290.

Pliancy of the recitative measures, 197.

Plot, in narration, 517.

Plots, Interwoven, 538.

Poetic diction and its inter-
actions with prose (Chap, vi),
139 ; what it is, 140.

Poetic rhythm, Elements of, 172.

Poetic setting in diction, 145 ; traits
in poetry and in prose, 141 ;
in description, 497.

Poetry, Descriptive, 508.

Polarized words, 152.

Point of view, 481 ; The traveller's, 506.

Portrayal without detail, 491 ; Time-
conditioned, 504 ; Panoramic, 505.

Possessive, The, in poetic diction, 143.

Practical value of figures, 75.

Precision, as aspect of clearness, 29.

Predicate of sentence, 313.

Prefacing statement, 288.

Pregnant words, 93.

Preliminary paragraph, The, 381 ; ends
in narration, 519.

Premises, 616.

Preparation of question, in debate, 635.

Preparative elements in movement, 525.

Present use of words, 61.

Presentive words, 117.

Principle of division, The, 570.

Progress in plan, Manner of, 439 ; Nat-
ural stages of, 441.

Prominence, Law of, in retrospective
reference, 250.

Proportion in paragraph, Claims of, 375.

Propositional paragraph, The, 379.

Propositions, Explication of, 578.

Prose, Definition of, 107 ; The ap-
proaches OF, TO POETRY, 163 ;

The rhythm of, 210.

670

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

Prose arrangement, 113; connection
of words, 115; vocabulary, 109;

RHYTHM, 2IO.

Prose diction (Chap, v), 107 ; stand-
ard, 109; AS DETERMINED

by occasion, 118; Intellectual
type of, 164; Impassioned type
of, 166; Imaginative type of,
168.

Prospective reference, 254.

Provincialisms, 55.

Proximity, The law of, in retrospective
reference, 250.

Punctuation, Office of, in sentence, 325 ;
present status of, ^33-

Purity, as standard of diction, 44.

Purpose, in narrative, 518.'

Qualities of style (Chap, ii), 27.
Qualities, temperament of, 41 ; of sound,

Language employed for, 153.
Question, preparation of the, in debate,

635-
Quotation, in amplification, 471.

Raconteur, The professional, and his
stories, 516. ,

Rapidity, condensation for, 299.

Rate of narrative movement, 522.

Reading, Ways of, in invention, 408 ;
Creative, 409; for discipline, 411;
Compendious, 413; broadly and
deeply, 415 ; by topics, 415 ; Dis-
posal of results of, 417.

Realism, in fiction, 552.

Recitative measures in rhythm, 174;
Pliancy of the, 197.

Reductio ad absurdum, 623.

Redundancy, 290.

Reference, Retrospective, 246 ;
Prospective, 254 ; Explicit, in
paragraph, 370; Implicit, 372.

References and citations, 419.

Refrain, in poetry, 184.

Refutation, 626 ; Order of, in debate, 641.

nciples of,

Relation and arrangement, Princip

438; with audience, in oratory, 645.

Relative, Connotation of the, 236 ; equiv-
alents for, 239.

Repetition, 302 ; in disguise, 305 ; of
construction, 308 ; in amplification,
465.

Repose, The element of, 42.

Reproduction of thought, Forms of, 582.

Reserve, or understatement, 105.

Residues, The method of, 625.

Results of reading, Disposal of, 417.

Retarded movement, in narration, 522.

Retrospective reference, 246.

Revery contrasted with meditation, 403.

Rhetoric, Definition of, 1 ; distinguished
from grammar, 2 ; distinguished
from logic, 3 ; as adaptation, 1 ; as
art, 4 ; two kinds of, 5 ; Province
and distribution of, 8.

Rhyme, 158; in prose diction, 158.

Rhythm, in poetry and in prose
(Chap, vii), 171 ; Poetic, elements of,
172; Musical overtones of, 190;
Phrasal undertone of, 202; of
prose, The, 210 ; as accessory of
description, 498.

Romance and novel, 551.

Saxon derivatives, 70.

Scenic history, 547.

Scholarly use of words, 68.

Science and art discriminated, 4

Segmentation, The phrasal, 204.

Selection, The problem of, in description,
479 ; in abstract, 583.

Self-culture, The support from,
in invention, 396.

Semicolon, The, 326.

Semicoloned clauses, 323.

Sense of literary form, The, 390.

Sentence, The (Chap, x), 311 ; Defini-
tion of, 311; Organism of, 312;
in prose rhythm, 218 ; Types of, 316 ;
in diction, 345.

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

671

Sequence, in plan headings, 440.

Sequential conjunctions, 267.

Setting, Influence of poetic, in diction,

145.
Shades of meaning, 47.
Shall and will, 233.
Short sentence, The, in diction, 345.
Sign, Argument from, 611.
Similarity and contrast, Law of, in

thought-association, 444.
Simile, "jj ; in description, 494.
Simplex type of sentence, 317.
Sing-song, Tendency to, 211.
Situations, in narration, 519.
Skeleton outline, The, 433.
Sonnet, The, 188.
Sound, Language employed for qualities

of, 153-
Sounds in sequence and repetition, 156.
Spenserian stanza, The, 188.
Split infinitive, The, 230.
Splitting of particles, 301.
Spoken diction, 118.
Stages of progress in plan, Natural,

441.
Standard prose diction, 109.
Stanza, The, in poetic rhythm, 183; un-

rhymed, 184 ; ode, 185 ; elegiac, 186 ;

hymn, 187; Spenserian, 188.
Stock expressions, 73.
Stress, Concentration of, in collocation,

243 ; Dynamic, 340.
Stress-point as a cue, 340.
Strophe, 185.
Structure, Landmarks of, in completed

work, 435.
Style, as division of rhetoric, 9; in

general (Book i), 13 ; Nature

AND BEARINGS OF (Chap. I), 16;

Definition of, 16 ; and the thought,
18; and the man, 19; Adjust-
ments of, 20; Qualities of (Chap.
iij, 27.
Subconscious mental action, Avails of,
406.

Subdual of descriptive details, 486; of

narrative details, 514.
Subject, of sentence, 313 ; of compo-
sition, 421 ; and theme, relations of,

421.
Subjective description, 502.
Subjunctive, The, 232.
Subordinating class of conjunctions, 265.
Suggestion, as accessory of amplification,

473 ; by effects, 500.
Support from self-culture, The,

in invention, 396.
Supporting medium, The, in story, 530.
Surprise, The element of, in narration,

527.
Suspension, 279 ; Workmanship of, 280.
Syllogism, The, 617; in enthymeme,

618 ; in enlargement, 620.
Symbolic element, The, 117; words, 117.
Symbolics, Omission of, in poetic diction,

141.
Symbols of things, Exposition of

the, 575.
Synchronism of events, 540.
Synecdoche, 88.
Synonyms, 47.

Synonymy in exposition, 576.
Syntactical adjustments, 223.

Taste, relation to writing, 21; as basis
of beauty, 40.

Tautology, 307.

Technicalisms, 56.

Temperament of qualities, 41.

Tense, The scheme of, 226.

Terms, Exegesis of," 576.

Testimony, 600.

Tetrameter, 180.

Theme, The, 421; Definition of, 421;
as related to subject, 421 ; Signifi-
cance of, as deduced, 424 ; as related
to form of discourse, 426 ; as dis-
tinguished from title, 429.

Things, Exposition of, 557.

Thought-association, Laws of, 443.

672

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

Thought-building, Orders of, 446.
Three idioms, 232.
Time-conditioned portrayal, 504.
Title, The, as compared with theme,

429 ; Characteristics of, 429.
Tone of discourse, Maintenance

of the, 135.
Topic of paragraph, Prominence of, 359 ;

Place of, 361 ; Double, 363.
Topics, Casual, in meditation, 408 ;

Reading by, 415.
Total effect, Problem of, in description,

480.
Transitional paragraph, The, 381.
Transitions, 457.
Translation, 587.

Travel and observation, Sketches of, 509.
Treatise, The, 594.
Tributary portions, of sentence, The,

Trisyllabic feet, 176.

Trochaic measure, 175.

Trope, 87.

Types, The literary (Book v), 475.

Unamplified expression, The province
of, 460.

Understatement, 105; of emotion, 656.

Undertone of phrasal rhythm, 202.

Unity of sentence, 320; Relations con-
stituting it, 323.

Untranslatable, The, 589 footnote.
Unworn words and phrases, Partiality

to, in poetic diction, 144.
Utility, as standard of prose choice, 109.

Value, Practical, of figures, 75.

Variety, Claims of, in sentence stress,
342.

Vehicle of the story, The, 529.

Verifying spirit, The, in invention, 400.

Verse, The, in rhythm, 178; Stand-
ard types of, 179; The life of,
189.

Vigor, Condensation for, 295 ; of narra-
tive movement, 524.

Vision, 98.

Vocabulary of prose, 109.

Waiving, in debate, 638.

Will, Appeal to the, in oratory, 657; as
basis of force, 36 ; in rhetorical
adaptation, 4.

Word-painting, 151 ; in description, 498.

Words, Choice of, for denota-
tion (Chap, iii), 46; and fig-
ures for connotation (Chap,
iv), 75-

Written discourse for public delivery,
122.

Written diction, 126 ; Mechanical aids
to, 128.

DIRECTORY OF AUTHORS QUOTED.

[This index is confined to actual quoted matter ; it does not include mere references. For
volume and page reference, see the pages where the quotations occur. The page-numbers
in full-faced type refer to rhetorical readings.]

Abbott, Edwin A., 231, 258, 287, 303, 309.
Abbott, Lyman, 112, 297, 310, 327, 331.
Abbott and Seeley, in.
Addison, Joseph, 363.
Amiel, Henri Frederic, 79.
Arnold, George, 499.
Arnold, Matthew, 51, 60, 270, 283, 298,
304, 308, 326, 331, 332, 342, 355,

36l> 473, 56l> 563, 586-
Arnott, Neil, 564.
Austen, Jane, 515.

Bacon, Francis, 370, 398, 410, 447,

460, 571, 573-
Bagehot, Walter, 112, 394, 513, 515.
Bain, Alexander, 290, 291, 321, 324,

335, 649.
Barrie, J. M., 297.
Bible, 52, 78, 98, 122, 148, 214, 233, 235,

236, 238, 266, 267, 277, 291, 306, 307,

322> 329,37i, 50I» 6l4, 651.
Birrell, Augustine, 101.
Blair, Hugh, 466.
Boott, F., 195.
Boswell, James, 417.
Brimley, George, 76.
Brooke, Stopford A., 28, 500.
Brown, John, 244, 494, 658.
Browning, Robert, 116, 142, 144, 158,

175, T7r>, *77, *99, 2°°, 238» 299,483,

531, 534.
Bryant, William Cullen, 153.

Bunyan, John, 69, 86.

Burke, Edmund, 96, 256, 277, 285, 293,
306, 309, 331, 349, 378,382,428,444,
449, 471, 574, 614, 625, 627.

Burton, Nathanael, 398, 406, 407, 416,
435, 459, 464.

Bushnell, Horace, 425, 566.

Butcher, S. H., 152.

Butler, Samuel, 181.

Byron, George Gordon, Lord, 486.

Cable, George W., 162, 325.

Carlyle, Thomas, 49, 80, 88, 89, 103, 106,
144, 263, 269, 279, 286, 316, 332,
352, 358, 372, 443, 463, 485, 494,
497, 511, 543, 544, 567, 584.

Carroll, Lewis, 182.

Century Cyclopaedia of Names, 16.

Chambers's Cyclopaedia, 556, 609, 610.

Chapman, George, 181.

Chevy-Chace, 181.

Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 293, 451.

Clough, Arthur Hugh, 183.

Cobbett, William, 255.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 177, 192, 259,
498.

Couch, A. T. Quiller, 550.

Cowper, William, 114.

Craddock, Charles Egbert, see Murfree,
Mary Noailles.

Crockett, S. R., 291.

Curtis, George William, 661.

673

674

DIRECTORY OF AUTHORS QUOTED.

Dallas, E. S., 275.

Darmesteter, James, 91.

Davidson, Samuel, 130.

Delitzsch, Friedrich, 409.

De Mille, James, 162.

De Quincey, Thomas, 36, 69, 100, 103,

118, 146, 263, 264, 277, 278, 279,

284, 294, 350, 351, 2>7h 377, 414,

463, 523, 546, 547.
Deutsch, Emanuel, 341.
Dickens, Charles, 66, 72, 99, 103, 212,

306, 341, 490, 496, 529, 540.
Dixon, William Macneile, 28.
Drummond, Henry, 65.
Dryden, John, 82, 210.
Dumas, Alexander, 249, 253, 290, 306.

Earle, John, 44, 49, 53, 65, 88, 96,
109, 110, 119, 135, 139, 150, 155,
163, 230, 247, 263, 317, 318, 319,
323, 346, 349, 357, 359, 374,

633-
Eliot, Charles William, 402.
Eliot, George, see George Eliot.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 46, 59, 322, 374,

409, 410, 549, 648.
English Illustrated Magazine, %y
Erskine, Thomas, Lord, 602.
Euphues, see Lyly, John.
Everett, Edward, 504.

Farrar, Frederick William, 343.
Fitzgerald, Edward, 187, 301.
Flaubert, Gustave, 23.
Ford, Paul Leicester, 271, 391.
Fox, Charles James, 125, 619, 662.
Fuller, Thomas, 7$.

Gage, Alfred P., 564.

Gates, Lewis E., 581.

Genung, John Franklin, 151, 298, 586.

George Eliot, 148, 492, 568.

Gibbon, Edward, 90, 235, 288, 450.

Goodrich, Chauncey A., 657.

Gordon, George A., 246, 343.

Gosse, Edmund, 80, 81, 90, 91, 92, 93,

592.
Grant, Ulysses S., 341.
Gras, Felix, 17, 246, 495.
Gray, Thomas, 186.
Green, John Richard, 484, 542.
Greenleaf, Simon, 603, 624.

Hall, Newman, 437.

Hardy, Thomas, 523, 529.

Harper 's Weekly, 344.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 72, 84, 100, 360,

519.
Hay, John, see Nicolay, J. G., and John

Hay.
Helps, Sir Arthur, 253, 325.
Henderson, W. J., 302.
Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, 68,

162, 530.
Hodgson, William B., 82.
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 51, 59, 78, 92,

291, 293.
Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus), 36,

518.
Howells, William Dean, 65, $2, 224,

531.
Hughes, Thomas, 162, 524.
Hugo, Victor, 484.
Hume, David, 334.
Hunt, Leigh, 282.
Hutton, Richard Holt, 428.
Huxley, Thomas Henry, 12, 58, 131.

Independent, The, 276.

James, Henry, 482, 487, 489, 517-

James, William, 468, 515.

Jevons, William Stanley, 87, 572.

Johnson, Herrick, 437.

Johnson, Samuel, 22, 27, 73, 211, 291,

309, 317, 438, 525, 561, 630.
Joubert, Joseph, 425-
Journal of Geology, The, 57.

Keats, John, 147, 149.

DIRECTORY OF AUTHORS QUOTED.

675

Keble, John, 187.

Kinglake, Alexander William, 308.
Kingsley, Charles, 194, 317.
Kipling, Rudyard, 146, 193.

Lamb, Charles, 130, 153.

Landor, Walter Savage, 15, 53, 84,

113, 314.
Lang, Andrew, 307.
Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, 480.
Lewes, George Henry, 447, 448, 589,

632.
Lewes, Marian Evans, see George Eliot.
Lewis, Tayler, 588.
Lockhart, John Gibson, 297, 507.
Lodge, Henry Cabot, 138.
London Times, 130.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 173, 175,

182.
Lowell, James Russell, 49, 50, 61, 94,

137, 152, 295, 491.
Lyly, John (Euphues), 353.
Lytton, Edward George Earle Lytton

Bulwer, Lord, 160, 493.

Mabie, Hamilton Wright, 399.

Macaulay, Thomas Babington, Lord, 78,
88, 94, 101, 106, 224, 259, 272,294,
3°3> 3°4, 3°9, 3H, 3Z3> 34^, 359. 364,
368, 377, 38o> 382> 423» 444, 447, 4^6,
585, 606, 622, 630, 631, 636, 660.

McCarthy, Justin, 92.

McCurdy, James Frederick, 309.

McLaughlin, Edward T., 91.

Macmillan^s Magazine, 388, 471.

Marsh, George Perkins, 656.

Mathews, William S. B., 647, 648.

Matthews, Brander, 160, 309.

Meredith, George, 245, 271, 488.

Mill, John Stuart, 566, 578.

Milton, John, 28, 103, 148, 151, 154,
161, 175, 198, 199, 200, 20S, 404,
411, 503.

Minto, William, 32, 350, 611.

Moore, Thomas, 280.

Morison, J. Cotter, 513, 539.

Morley, John, 298, 467.

Morris, William, 145.

Mother Goose, 192. .

Motley, John Lothrop, 272, 281, 521,

524.
Mozley, James, 298, 501, 620.
Murfree, Mary Noailles, 101, 308.
Myers, Frederick W., 283.

Newman, John Henry, Cardinal, 31,
88, 89, 96, 124, 214, 284, 287, 307,

3IO> 3*3, 3H, 324, 325> 329, 333, 347,
348, 349, 362, 369, 382, 422, 465, 577,
614, 618, 621.

Nichol, John, 275.

Nicolay, J. G., and John Hay, 555, 646.

Nicoll, Henry J., 292.

North American Review, 50.

Onookool Chunder Mookerjee, 138.

Parker, E. G., 401.

Parkman, Francis, 469.

Pascal, Blaise, 275, 297, 299, 453, 468.

Pater, Walter, 23, 26, 39, 40, 47, 52,

63, 69, 259, 329, 330, 332, 334,

363, 386, 421, 463.
Payne, E. J., 466, 560.
Phelps, Austin, 413, 461, 647.
Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart, see Ward,

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.
Phillips, Stephen, 289.
Piers the Plowman, 156.
Pitt, William, 50.
Pope, Alexander, 149, 160, 183, 185, 296,

650.
Porter, Horace, 106.
Pryde, David, 488, 514.

Quintilian (Marcus Fabius Quintilia-
nus), 29.

Reade, Charles, 279.

Robertson, Frederick \V., 400, 516.

676

DIRECTORY OF AUTHORS QUOTED.

Robertson, James, 228.

Roe, E. P., 263.

Rollins, Alice, 304.

Ruskin, John, 7, 103, 123, 148, 168, 252,

256, 3OI> 3J4, 329, 33°> 331, 339, 45 x>

455, 456, 481, 502.
Russell, W. Clark, 66.

Saintsbury, George, 218, 272, 290, 301,

304, 311.
Salmon, G., 130.
Saturday Review, 136.
Schubert, Franz, 173.
Schurz, Carl, 428.
Scott, Sir Walter, 1S1, 296, 297, 306,

431, 522> 526> 527-

Shairp, J. C, 577.

Shakespeare, William, 42, 43, 79, 80,
95, H3, m, 180, 296, 332, 498, 501,
503,560,649,651,655.

Smollett, Tobias George, 248.

Soule, Richard, 47.

Southey, Robert, 164.

Spencer, Herbert, 24, 314, 428.

Spenser, Edmund, 188.

Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn, 354.

Stanley, H. M., 273.

Stedman, Edmund Clarence, 13, 252,
270, 560.

Steele, Richard, 251.

Stephen, Leslie, 436, 460, 518, 551.

Stevenson, Robert Louis, 13, 15, 78,
85, 88, 89, 92, 94, 129, 171, 189,
202,205,208,211,2i6,218,235,
236, 252, 282, 302, 311, 322, 330,
397, 399, 407, 470, 479, 482, 485,
492, 506, 513, 514, 539, 548,
550.

Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 252.

Sutton, J. Bland, 565. /T\

■ W i

Swift, Jonathan, 289.

Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 143, 151,

157, 158.

Taylor, Bayard, 81.

Temple, Sir William, 218.

Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, 84, 89, 93, 98,
140, 143, 151, 153, 156, 157, 158,
160, 161, 175, 179, 182, 184, 188, 191,
195, 199, 201, 203, 239, 266, 273, 275,
490, 491, 503, 504, 528, 555, 586, 659.

Thackeray, William Makepeace, 86, 97,
100, 104, 131, 159, 270, 545.

Tillotson, John, 307.

Trevelyan, George Otto, 150, 545.

Trollope, Anthony, 343, 533, 538, 539.

Tyler, Moses Coit, 613.

Van Dyke, Henry, ^73-

Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro), 160,

Walton, Izaak, 251.
Ward, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, 224.
Ward, Mrs. Humphry, 128, 233, 241.
Webster, Daniel, 166, 288, 329, 600, 609,

612, 628, 629, 644.
Wendell, Barrett, 29, 358, 365, 366.
Whately, Richard, 463, 465, 467, 604.
White, Gilbert, 160, 235.
White, Richard Grant, 2^.
Whitman, Walt, 217.
Wilkinson, William Cleaver, 392, 520.
Wilson, Woodrow, 405, 423, 431, 438,

453, 455, 457, 605.
Wordsworth, William, 114, 142, 143, 144,

145, 155, 189, 200, 226, 472, 502.

Youth' 's Companion, 160.
Zangwill, Israel, 273.

rti i\ ov lafVJ

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Gen::.-;, John Franklin
1408 The working ?r"

046 of rhetoric

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Full text of "The working principles of rhetoric examined in their literary relations and illustrated with examples. A restudied and reproportioned treatise based on the author's Practical elements of rhetoric"

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